Black brain radio was as an inevitable development in Garrett Phelan’s ongoing investigation of the ‘formation of opinion’, a vast, ambitious project which began in 2001 and which examines how we structure our moral outlooks, ideas and belief systems. Radio has been integral to his practice for many years, and as the fourth part in the initial phase of this particular project, it continues to deal with the ‘reception of information’. It is, however, a notable departure from the first three works in this phase.

A consistent thread running through the project is the idea of electromagnetics and the transmission of information. This was particularly the case with GOD ONLY KNOWS at Dublin’s Civic Offices, where the glass structure created layers of images that echoed the transparency of radio waves. It was then consolidated by the Black brain radio broadcast, which was aural and temporal rather than visual and spatial. The ‘artwork’ was thus ephemeral by its very nature, and lasted only thirty days. But crucial to it as visual art is the concept of sound as a sculptural medium – as an invisible but physical force.

NOW:HERE, LUNGLOVE and GOD ONLY KNOWS were temporary site-specific drawings in nongallery spaces. Black brain radio was also ‘off-site’ in a sense, but it was positioned on the airwaves and online, taking advantage of the accessible, democratic nature of radio, and the fact that anyone could tune into it, anywhere and at any time. It was everywhere and nowhere, bypassing traditional gallery structures and reaching out to a wider audience. By broadcasting both to a Dublin audience on 89.9 FM and over the internet, it managed to have a local significance and an all-encompassing global reach.

Black brain radio was a feat of endurance, with Phelan using himself as the collector, regurgitator and ‘presenter’ of information. This involved a painstaking project of compiling, processing, recording, and editing enough information to last a round-the-clock, month-long broadcast. Phelan accumulated huge amounts of facts, figures and opinions from television, radio, books and the internet on a diverse range of subjects such as religion, physics, health, the environment and philosophy which, while vast and wide-ranging, was still only a minute fraction of what is available. For each day, he recorded himself speaking this information for about two hours and forty minutes. Each recording consisted of a series of two-minute segments, which were shuffled on an MP3 player to ensure that they were in no particular order. Every day, one of these recordings was played on a loop for twenty-four hours.

Anyone who tuned in would have heard Phelan droning on endlessly in a deadpan manner, reciting a random, jumbled and disconnected array of facts and opinions. He blatantly flouted the conventions of radio, yawning, pausing, stumbling over words, receiving text messages and taking slugs of water. By changing the context of how the information was received, it became confused and meaningless, thus inviting the listener to question how they obtain knowledge. Despite the project’s temporal nature, it was not an attempt to escape the institutionalisation of art, as it was supported by IMMA and Temple Bar Gallery & Studios and ratified by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland. Because these authorities had given an ordinary citizen as much right to broadcast as a conventional radio station, Black brain radio had more provocative power than a pirate broadcast could possibly have had.

However, even though such institutional support was crucial, it would have been more radical if there had not also been installations at IMMA and TBG&S. A mobile recording unit was displayed in IMMA’s process room, while at TBG&S, a series of thirty drawings were hung in the unlit gallery space, along with a microphone and recording equipment. The installations were secondary to the broadcast, which was the principal ‘artwork’. It would have been considerably more daring if the project had not been anchored by this peripheral visual aspect.

Black brain radio was, in many ways, a simulacrum of a conventional radio station, existing alongside them on the FM waveband. Indeed, by having radio multiples and hoodies with logos for sale, the project echoed a radio station’s commercial nature and cultivation of a brand. It also had political undertones. While radio is a powerful democratic tool, it can also be a dangerous propaganda weapon, with the ability to affect the formation of opinion in an insidious, frightening way, as evidenced in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This may be an extreme example, but what Phelan’s project does is make us question not only how we receive information, but how willing we are to accept ideas and opinions.

It also had political undertones. While radio is a powerful democratic tool, it can also be a dangerous propaganda weapon, with the ability to affect the formation of opinion in an insidious, frightening way, as evidenced in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This may be an extreme example, but what Phelan’s project does is make us question not only how we receive information, but how willing we are to accept ideas and opinions.

Black brain radio questions what art can be, how it can be experienced and who can experience it. It is challenging as a work of art – it was as much of an endurance test for the listener as it must have been for the artist – but this was no doubt the intention. As indicated by the lively blog debate that developed on the project’s website, it inspired strong opinions – from individuals who commended it as a refreshing alternative to conventional broadcasting, to others who lambasted it as a waste of taxpayers’ money. But by inspiring such debate and by reaching beyond the traditional, enclosed art-world structures, it became a perfect illustration of the formation of opinion.

Eimear McKeith is visual arts critic for the Sunday Tribune.

Garrett Phelan: from Black brain radio 2006