The female voice is tranquilizing, haunting. "Hello. Welcome to Tune (In))). Upon entering the facility, you will receive a stereo transistor radio. After putting on your headset, you will be transported through an extrasensory experience. For maximum auratorical pleasure, tune into the following frequencies on your FM dial."

No, you have not stumbled onto the set of Logan's Run. These are the instructions broadcasted in the lobby of Tune (In))), a project of the nonprofit media arts organization free103point9. During this sound event, listeners navigate among varying frequencies, exploring the radio spectrum itself as its own art form, tuning in to 30-plus artists' performances via five transmitters. The room is silent, but the headphones are awash with aural hubbub. Salutations from the world of transmission art. Your host: free103point9.

Operating out of the Hudson Valley, New York City, and beyond, free103point9 is focused clearly on its goal: to cultivate transmission art. But what exactly is this art form? It's entirely its own genre—utterly experimental, creatively expressive, specializing in radio art, video art, light sculpture, installation, and performance using the wireless spectrum. But, for the sake of this article, we'll focus on the audible. Sound sculpture, if you will.

Admittedly, this din isn't for everyone. It would be most appreciated by the curious listener, the connoisseur of sound, or the techie geek. Tune (In))) The Kitchen: Selected Performances from the Live Event (one of many CDs and vinyl LPs that free103point9 has released through its own record label) pilots the listener through the following sonic collages comprised of noises real or imagined: static; classical music; roaring wind; sheer, industrial dissonance; hovercraft; dialogue; a chanting guru; and blood coursing through veins (courtesy of Peggy Ahwesh and Barbara Ess); or low-frequency hum, birds, disturbance, water, thuds, and Jodie Foster listening for little green men (thanks to Ben Owen); or manipulated guitar, sounds of schizophrenia, and harsh decomposition (Damian Catera); or electropollution, technoclash, creaking plastic trees, the voices of British males, plunking pogo sticks, classical strings, robotic rhythms, tapping ceramics awash in ambiance (from Robin Rimbaud); or English as a Second Language students gathered together in New York City, singing in their native tongues. Another audio dispatch—Skyline's Private Sectors (noiseotica v.3)—combines guitar, electronics, turntablism, rhythmscapes, abrasions, and thumps to create rhythmic techno/industrial disharmony spanning from the upbeat and loungey to a screeching clamor from the crypt. Again, this stuff is unyielding ear whacks for the peerless and reverent audiophile.

Founded in Brooklyn in 1997 as a microcasting artists' collective, the free103point9 ship is steered by executive director Galen Joseph-Hunter and program director Tom Roe. Says Joseph-Hunter: "[These] artists use the airwaves as their creative medium. Instead of paint, they use signals they're taking from the airwaves, or create new content to put out on the airwaves. It's not your typical music performance/audience/listener relationship. It's much more exciting than that."

Moving upstate from New York City in the fall of 2004, Joseph-Hunter and Roe established Wave Farm in the Greene County hamlet of Acra—30 acres of meadows, ponds, and pine forest dedicated to the airwaves. Though free103point9 has presented the work of hundreds of experimental sound artists and partnered with organizations all over the globe, Wave Farm is the location of the organization's latest public events, the first of which took place last summer. Once based in Manhattan, Tune(In))) has now morphed into TuneOutside. Setting up multiple performance areas on the Wave Farm property, between 40 and 60 artists create their live art throughout the day—nothing amplified, everything sent through independent FM transmitters—and visitors with headphones tune in to the different channels, weaving through the woods in what could only be perceived as a magical experience. Of course, the rest of the commercial radio dial is also present. Last summer, approximately 150 listeners attended, including artists, curators, individuals from educational institutions, and the merely curious from Brooklyn, Albany, Hudson, Bard College, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy.

The programs and activities presented through free103point9 are legion. The organization has participated in projects as far away as South Korea and Poland, as well as collaborated with many of the major contemporary art institutions of the world. Wave Farm's residency program has also attracted a diverse spectrum of artists from Buffalo, Troy, Brooklyn, and even Finland and England. The Wave Farm Study Center, which recently broke ground, will open next summer on free103point9's 10th anniversary, and will feature a viewing, listening, and reading library specializing in transmission and media arts, as well as a performance and gallery space and a studio. Wave Farm has also been participating in skill-shares with open, free classes, allowing participants to come to Wave Farm to put together microphones and FM transmitters to share and teach each other new skills. Radio Lab, which began as an educational program for East Harlem youth, provides students with technical and creative skills, as well as a history of radio communications. The nonprofit is also actively accepting volunteers and interns.