RADIO FREE CLEAR LIGHT

Radio Free Clear Light is a living radio built of human components for the purpose of tuning into an otherworldly transmission through creative action. Whether through music, poetry, graphic art, video editing or some discipline in between, RFCL seeks to abolish the audience, turning them instead into an active element within the radio. In this way creation is never restricted to an elite few.
While the outlets may vary, all of the work done by RFCL is process driven, the end product is given little, if any consideration. Instead attention is devoted to the act of creating, a process through which something subtle may be carried.

Radio Free Clear Light is an experiment originally conceived of as a weekly gathering held at the Bardo Training Center of San Francisco, CA. In this earliest incarnation, the focus was directed towards using sound and music as a tool for invocation.

As with all real invocations, the intent was to induce states of being that are ordinarily beyond the reach of normal human consciousness. In this spirit, professional musicians sat along side individuals that had never laid hands on an instrument before. Surrendering to the moment of improvisation and experimentation allowed participants to step outside of their conventional persona. They themselves became the instrument; a radio tuned to an unknown frequency.

From this original idea of musical improvisation as a mind altering experience and medium for challenging the standard consensus reality, the Radio Free Clear Light experiment evolved into a series of recordings. Rick Perko, Menlo MacFarlane, Pepe, Carlos and Ricardo Flores, gathered in various configurations in the home studio of Juan Carlos Mendizabal. The exploration was continued. From these sessions, the first RFCL titles were produced and released through the then budding Black Note Label. Each of these is a child of the moment, unrehearsed and unrepeatable.

Eventually Radio Free Clear Light found its way into the world wide web, the collective subconscious of the technological age. Here began the quest to work with the same ideas of randomness and commitment to process through images and words. The early Shaman Music offered an explanation of Radio Free Clear Light in the form of an instruction manual for building the radio. Concepts and experiments were offered in an intellectually digestible format.

The labyrinthine Via Sinistrae is home to a variety of visual/liguistic experiments. Dark and dangerous, it is also the fertile breeding ground that spawned the Beauty Process; a series of pages and processes that develop one from another exponentially. More recent projects such as All Hail Discordia are happy to speak directly to the deeply rooted pre-linguistic being, relying heavily on combinations of image and sound. RFCL’s most recent work in this arena plays with the shape of images and the structure of words rather than their content.

The graphic artwork of RFCL has recently been introduced to the gallery setting. Producing images alone, without any accompanying features, has fostered the development of new and stringent processes within this line of creative work. Continuing the spirit of collaboration and improvisation prevalent in RFCL's musical endeavors, the pieces are never orchestrated; original photographs and images are found through serendipity rather that sought out, and each piece is a collaboration. No one artist has complete control over any single work of art.

Springing from the joy of mingling audio and video stimulation to engage subtle consciousness, RFCL explores the realm of videography. These visual poems ( 1 , 2 ) strive to be the stuff that dreams are made of, literally. The same devotion to process, collective creativity, and improv factors into their production. Processes vary from beginning with the audio and structuring the visual elements over the sound structure to doing the reverse, creating a visual experience and augmenting it with sound. In this way both aspects bear equal significance, an approach that is an afront to mainstream video and film production where music is continually stuck playing second fiddle.

Even with so many branches reaching into the abyss, RFCL remains connected to its roots; live events ( 1 , 2 ) where improvisation and collaboration reign supreme continue to be central to the work of Radio Free Clear Light. A synthesis of modern technology and a primordial consciousness, these events seek to engage the modern audience, transforming them into collaborators within a shared experience. In these events images, sound, words, and movement are employed cohesively to weave every element into a single tapestry of pure existence. The building of the radio is an ongoing experiment. Everything that can be used, will be used to explore the frontier of the hidden self, the eternal abyss.

While it shifts with the gaiety of glass beads within a kaleidoscope, Radio Free Clear Light’s present core composition includes three artists: Juan Carlos Mendizabal, Etanna Zak, and Lydia Harari.

Native to El Salvador, Juan Carlos Mendizabal a.k.a. Kyron, graduated from SFSU in 1993 with a specialty in Music Composition and Electronic Music. He has composed soundtracks for films and classical pieces for the Symphonic Orchestra of El Salvador. Kyron works in the space where electronica meets free acoustic improvisation, where sound and images intertwine.

Lydia Harari is a photographer, dancer and experimental video artist. She gathers inspiration from unusual details, delicate sounds and gestures, colors and breezes. At present, she is developing a school of movement that blends traditional ethnic dances with pure motion and raw sounds. She aims to take her creativity to a place of defiance and awakening.

Etanna Zak has a background in theater, modeling, and graphic art. She is currently exploring the outer reaches of fluid ritual activity and the Noise Movement.