A commemoration of the glory of the microphone and sounding wires: radio essay.

sound and concept: Radio lemurie, july 2007, mixing and recording: Milos Vojtechovsky, Stanislav Abraham.

December 1989. In Bucharest President Nicolae Ceausescu was holding on the balcony his last famous speech. All of sudden something unexpected happened down on the square: a sign of turmoil, protest. Ceausescu is confused and starts calling repeatedly: halo!, halo!, halo! tapping with his finger on the microphone to get back the contact with the usually obedient crowd, bewitched and captivated by the magic of the amplified voice of the dictator. Several days later, on 25 of December the national tribunal condemned Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu. They have been shot to death. Their execution as well as the trial was videotaped.

Elena screams to the solders, who led them to the execution place: “Child do not do this to me! Don’t you listen? Stop touching me. Haven’t you heard? What are you doing?” Nicolae tells Elena “Relax. Leave it be.” “Let me go!” screams Elena. Let my hands go!” Nicolae shouts “How do you have the right to do this?” (Dec. 25, 1989).

Electricity and amplified sound of the human voice transformed deeply the social, psychological and political context of the human discourse. Certain traces of totalitarianism are imbedded in almost every bit of broadcasted and transformed voice. The collage combines different samples of voices, speaking via telephone, found on the internet with ambient sounds, recorded in Prague, Wroclaw, Muenster and Kassel.