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tion. Usually all the accents you hear in an art
gallery are middle class. Free Thought FM gives people ownership of the space. It changes the methodology of how the gallery is used.” There are some that may wonder what part the gallery has to play when Phelan will be elsewhere, looking for a conversation on the streets of Dublin. As Phelan himself admits, “some people have said that the art has been reverted into marketing for something that’s moving beyond the space.” “The gallery exists in the tradition of the gallery experience” Phelan continues. “Terrestrial radio exists as a sculptural form for me. It travels out into the abyss forever, into the otherness. It goes through our bodies and the walls of the gallery and becomes symbolic for many things. It exists in there even though you’re not aware of it because all the equipment is in there transmitting.” “I suppose the gallery is the brain or core of the piece. But we can still move outside it just to illustrate to people that the art can go beyond that space.” When we meet in Trinity campus on a Tuesday afternoon, Phelan is incredibly excited for Free Thought FM to begin broadcasting. He doesn’t show any hint of trepidation in hosting over 100 hours of live radio. “I just take it one day at a time, one moment at a time” he says. “You have to accept that what you set out to achieve might not necessarily be what you achieve, and that’s fine. Failure has to be a part of big projects. It has to. If you’ve endeavoured to do absolutely as much as you can possibly do to bring people to the water trough and they don’t drink it, that’s perfectly ok. You just try to understand why that’s the case and you move forward from there.” Free Thought FM exhibition runs in the Douglas Hyde Gallery May 25. The radio broadcast will run until April 23rd on 105.2FM. PARTICIPATING… Cork rapper and beatmaker Spekulativ Fiktion will be one of those joining Garret on Free Thought FM during his stint in the gallery. – How did you get involved with Free Thought FM? A great Cork man, Fintan O’ Callaghan, discussed the project with me and I was glad to be involved. – What attracted you to the project? A number of things attracted me to the project. In my music, I have often dealt with social and political topics and I suppose I have opinions worth contributing to the conversation. On top of that I’m an art fan. I enjoy visiting galleries and getting inspired so becoming part of this art piece sounds cool in itself. – Can you tell us about your experiences trying to pursue higher education? I am lucky in that I was in a position where I did not have major difficulty with getting into college. In the end, I actually spent eight years studying between graphic design/art and then music, areas I continue to work in today. – Is there any particular aspect of these issues that you want to highlight during your time on Free Thought FM? With education in Ireland, in general, I feel a lot of people get left behind. No two of us think or work the same. If someone struggles, with the way they are thought and expected to learn, that can seriously hinder their life path. There is that quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.” breakingtunes.com/spekulativfiktion 32