4.Eva.FM — Bridget Chappell

Bridget Chappell and Debris Facility’s project 4.Eva.FM at Cool Change Contemporary (Boorloo\Perth) explores ‘breaks’ in rave culture as a fulcrum for pleasure within broken cultural infrastructure. The pair have developed custom pirate radio technology occupying a spectrum of frequencies broadcasting within the gallery and Perth CBD, inviting input from local rave heads across the FM spectrum. The project extends an open invitation to west coast DIY dance music crew with memories, desires, hot takes on rave histories and futures to visit and participate. The residency generated 5 individual pirate radio stations broadcasting a B2B mix between local DJ Halal Butch and Hextape, rave theory read aloud, 4.Eva.FM advertising, and track selections by local crew. A boombox set up in the gallery’s project space invited participants to turn the dial, press record at will to build one-off mix tapes, and (re)visit a time when the airwaves were alive with unsanctioned broadcasts, most of them temples to the amen break.

Outside the 4(eva)am crescendos of activity are the radio stations, the producers, the DJ mixes, the physical ephemera of tapes and zines, the sound systems Frankenstein’ed together, the conversations in loungerooms, the handbills on unlikely street poles – a universe of invitations to knit together these fleeting moments of temporary autonomy into something bigger. Like they say, “if it’s legal, it ain’t real.”