This year, Turbulence is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. Over the decade, the New York-based organization has commissioned over 110 pieces ($450,000) and exhibited and promoted artists' work through its Artists Studios, Guest Curator, and Spotlight sections. As networking technologies have developed wireless capabilities and become mobile, Turbulence has done a fantastic job by commissioning, exhibiting, and archiving the new hybrid networked art forms that have emerged.

I came to discover Turbulence through their blog networked_performance run mostly by Jo-Anne Green (her bio). As everyone who's involved at some point in new media art follows the blog religiously, i asked her to tell me more about the Turbulence organization, how it works, commissions, and, well... how it is financed.

Turbulence is 10 years old. How did it start? With what objectives?

Helen Thorington, founder of Turbulence, came to the net via radio. She was the founder and executive producer of New American Radio (NAR), a series of over 300 experimental sound and radio art works commissioned over an 11-year period (1987-1998). Although some of its programs where aired in Europe and Australia, NAR was primarily dependent on the American public radio system for distribution. Within months of receiving a major grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the series was subjected to a focus group, where its unfamiliarity proved detrimental. Labeled "minority" programming and criticized in advance for its inability to draw a large audience, it was aired by only a small number of public radio stations. While it remained on air for over ten years, and was loved and respected by stations committed to arts programming, the pressure placed on public stations to increase their audiences eventually lead to a decrease in air time for all arts programming and the suppression of the programming it was intended to support--"programs of high quality, diversity, creativity, excellence and innovation," not feasible in a commercial system.

The Internet promised a free, open, and participatory distribution mechanism. In 1996 Helen began making NAR available to audiences world-wide via http://somewhere.org. During the process, she and her colleague Harris Skibell began exploring the creative possibilities of the net and Turbulence was born. The continuity of Helen's sound/radio interests is evident in many of the early works and continues to this day.

[read the complete interview]