What is progress?

One of the things I’ve found myself doing now that I have a good FM radio with a digital tuner on my E100 is listening to National Public Radio through station WBUR here in Boston. I’ve always been a bit of a news junky and it wasn’t unusual for me to be found listening to WBZ-AM when I could get the signal (meaning not on the subway) and wasn’t listening to music. One of the things I wanted to do when I bought my E100 is to get a little portable radio with a digital tuner so I could listen to WBZ without having to cart around my old CD player that has an AM-FM tuner but I could never find a portable AM radio with a digital tuner that didn’t cost over $20. I’ve found a number of portable radios for right around $10 but they all have analog tuners. I guess AM portable radios have gotten passé enough that if someone wants an AM radio they’ll settle for one with an analog tuner but I prefer using a digital tuner so I could lock into a specific frequency.

I’ve grown to really love hearing Morning Edition,  All Things Considered, the BBC World Service and On Point, just to name a few of the great programs on WBUR, but there was a story on Studio 360 that I want to pass along. If you go to New York’s Guggenheim Museum between now and 10 March you’ll only see one artist’s work on display. And other than the work of conceptual artist Tino Sehgal’s “This Progress” you won’t see another work of art on display. But you won’t see a single work of art on the walls of the museum. You also won’t find any of the usual supporting material for the exhibit. Instead you’re greeted by a child who asks you, “What is progress?”

As you work your way through the museum you speak with three other people, you will work your way through a series of improvised conversations with the work on exhibit building on the conversations. It’s not your usual art exhibit but as I listened to the story produced by Studio 360‘s Michele Siegel I found myself wanting to get to New York City so I could hit the Gugg myself.

If you want more information on the exhibit head on over to the page for last night’s show and look for the Art of Conversation. You won’t find a transcript like you usually can find for programs on WBUR and NPR, but you can listen to the story and even download an MP3 of the story. It’s definitely worth the almost eight minutes the story runs for, and while you’re there you can also check out the other stories on last night’s show, including an interview with Quentin Tarantino as he waits to see how many of the eight nominations his movie Inglourious Basterds recieved will get a gold statue on next Sunday’s Oscar broadcast.