Towned
George Yatchisin Poet Laureate
Chinese Take Out & a Microphone
Clair Wentzel
di Patrick Melroy
Santa Barbara Poet Laureate George Yatchisin entered Transmission Station at the Community Arts Workshop for a wonderful conversation on a variety of topics. Per usual Patrick talked more than he wanted to and only later realized his missed opportunities. George was a very kind guest with brilliant things to say throughout.
Chinese Take Out and Microphones was an interactive art event dedicated to remembering the people we can no longer share a table with. Over shared cartons of Chinese takeout, participants were invited to step up to a microphone and tell stories—of important characters, legendary adventures, small moments, and lasting influences that shaped who we are. Voices were recorded to tape and broadcast as a living signal of memory and progress, carrying these stories beyond the room and into the air. Part communal meal, part oral history, part broadcast ritual, the night honored absence through presence, storytelling, and collective listening.
Artist and community member Clair Wentzel stops by transmission station during office hours and offers an excellent conversation about making art in Santa Barbara.
In a perfect game of telephone, artist Lucy Bell named this event Phone Chain, and I liked it so much we let it ride. Phone Chain (trademark Lucy Bell) was a workshop to rebuild a shared directory from memory, trust, and human connection. Participants begin by contributing the phone numbers remember by heart, then place live calls to friends and family to locate and verify additional numbers. Together, these fragments form a new phone directory compiled, designed, and printed as a zine. The resulting phone book is distributed only to the people whose numbers appear within it, creating a closed-loop network rooted in consent, intimacy, and lived relationships. Part social sculpture, part archival experiment, the workshop asks what it means to stay reachable in an age of infinite contacts.