The show begins, as it does every week, with David Bowie. On this Thursday at roughly 6 p.m., Sci Fi Lab co-host Chris Carl ventures into the vaults at WREK—Tech’s student radio station—and pulls the Ziggy Stardust LP from the shelves and shelves of musty records.
Bowie in hand, Carl joins his co-host Travis Gasque in a loungey area to discuss the day’s topics and write some “future news”—fake headlines, kind of like Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” but with jokes about aliens, video games and post-apocalyptic scenarios instead of skewering the news.
The duo bat several of these lines back and forth, shooting down some as quickly as they emerge. They talk a little bit about the movie Mad Max: Fury Road, which they will discuss on air. And then, with just a minute to spare, they casually head into the radio booth.
The clock strikes 7 p.m. and Carl lifts the needle on the record player and sets it down on “Starman,” and just like that, their congenial,fanboy banter is beamed out to anyone with the radio dial on 91.1 FM.
The Sci Fi Lab is a weekly radio show that serves as an outlet for students to explore their interests in science fiction work and criticism outside of the classroom. The show was born in part as a response to an ultimatum from Georgia Tech. In 2006, Georgia Public Broadcasting was interested in buying the campus radio station, which then played mostly music. Tech officials gave WREK a challenge: Come up with more original programming or, in six months, we’ll take the offer from GPB instead.
So the student radio station reached out to faculty like Lisa Yaszek, a professor in the College of Literature, Media and Communication, who leads Tech’s Science Fiction Initiative, for help creating unique programs related to their areas of expertise. “We started the show in 2006 and it’s been running regularly ever since,” Yaszek says.
The Sci Fi Lab show, which airs on Thursdays from 7-8 p.m. on WREK, welcomes a variety of guests onto the show, from Tech robotics professors to musicians to first-time authors, approaching science fiction from a variety of angles and cultural aspects.
“There are as many definitions of science fiction as there are fans,” Yaszek says. “It absolutely changes year by year depending on the students involved.”
For example, several years ago the students broadcast original science fiction radio dramas, while the current hosts are more interested in science fiction in education.
Yaszek serves as an advisor and a facilitator, often using her connections in the broader science fiction community to connect the student hosts with authors, musicians and groups like Atlanta’s Black Science Fiction Collective. Otherwise, the student hosts run the show.
“This is truly a student-run initiative and I have never seen such a group of dedicated and active and exciting students,” Yaszek says.
Carl and Gasque, the current co-hosts, have different interests.
Gasque, a graduate student who has been involved with the show since its early days, is big into narrative and role-playing games. One of his favorite Sci Fi Lab memories is interviewing Ross Payton of Role Playing Public Radio. Gasque says he also enjoys covering the many fan conventions, or “cons,” that take place in Atlanta, including Dragon Con, Onyx Con, and Momo Con, which started on Tech’s campus.
Carl says he enjoys when he is able to merge his love of music with his love of science fiction. One of his favorite shows featured science fiction musicians from Paris called Remi Orts Project and artist Alan B., who created a concept album based on an old Russian sci-fi novel.
“It’s just weird to get an email from people in France that want to be on your show,” Carl says. The French musicians are a pretty good representation of the show’s reach—fairly large, but eclectic. The hosts say they often are contacted after a show by people interested in delving deeper into a particular topic.
“It’s a strange but devoted following, and I mean that in a good way,” Yaszek says.
The show has a fairly open-door policy, and they’ve welcomed a variety of guests from Georgia Tech and the broader science-fiction community.
“The great part of Sci Fi Lab is the true act of science fiction,” Carl says. “Getting people together to think about the future and science and technology and art and other people is not something we passively report on. It’s something we create continuously with fans and listeners, so that’s a super interesting and exciting thing to be a part of.”
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