All posts by pauloraposo

Show 435: Clouds N 38 42.53, W 9 8.96 27-12-12 (Radio Zero)

Clouds N 38 42.53, W 9 8.96 27-12-12
Pedro Lagoa – laptop, 6DE
André Avelãs – electronics

(rehearsal for the When I Look at the Clouds I See Clouds [nimbostratus] performance that took place at Galeria Boavista, Lisbon, 28th Dec. 2012)

Taking as a starting point the intention of deconstructing the video [a cut through the] archive of destruction, this performance combines real time sound improvisation with a random video projection.

Elements of the video [a cut through the] archive of destruction were reduced to small segments which were divided into text and image video clips, to be played randomly from two separate sources projected on top of each other, and thus superimposing text on the video images. This way, the relation text/image is determined by pure chance, destroying not only the line of thought that presided at the narrative structure of the original video – with its calculated collages, sequences and juxtapositions of image-sound-text of different
proveniences – but also originating new and unpredictable image-text relations.

The sound of the original video segments was also split into small segments and loops, being subsequently reworked and transformed live during the performance. As images succeed each other in the projection, the performers try to respond to the random image-text combinations, through improvisation.

[a cut through the] archive of destruction is a video, of variable duration, that is part of the Educational Service of the archive of destruction, and consists of collage and editing of diverse materials which can be found in its collection. Through subjective associative lines, it performs a cut, in the geological sense, through some of the main ideas contained in the archive.
The video has been presented as part of installations of the archive of destruction and in a similar way to the archive, it develops in a process of continuous change and re-editing, never having the same cut of the video been presented twice.

The archive of destruction is an evolving structure, with no fixed address, dedicated to the collection of documents on actions and ideas that represent a negation of its basic function, which is the preservation of memory.
The archive has been developing in a continuous and organic way, in a movement of expansion that stretches to the most diverse areas – within well defined guidelines – where ideas or actions of destruction can be found.

Show 410: by OS for Radio Zero, Lisbon

Os: for percussion on 24 tuned suspended mirrors, recorded voice, alto saxophone, cello, cymbals and electronics.

A series of letters that come from a far away place and time. The narrator describes his research voyage on a planet with strange geological formations: The Cones. Alone, he writes this letters to W and keeps us aware of his mental deflections induced by the odd landscape.

Using parts of this text PARQUE presented a concert-installation at Culturgest, Lisbon in 2008.

Nuno Torres: alto saxophone
Ricardo Jacinto: cello and percussion
Nuno Morão: percussion/melodica
João Pinheiro: percussion/vibraphone
Dino Récio: percussion
André Sier: electronics
Murray Todd: voice

Text (Excerpts from “The Left Hand”, 2006) by Hugo Brito.

Recording: Pedro Magalhães
Mixing: Pedro Magalhães and Ricardo Jacinto (Golden Poney Studios)
Mastering: Rafael Toral

Radio Zero coordination: Paulo Raposo

Show 390: Sketch For Matter (by Ed Baxter, Resonance104.4fm)

The opening sequence of the Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger film A Matter Of Life And Death
(1946) provides the inspiration and much of the raw material for this fugitive mediation on the
romance of radio, heavily influenced by the delightful theories of Friedrich A. Kittler. The audio
comprises a) a nine second cymbal crash removed from the final edit of an album by Kinnie The
Explorer, recorded by Bob Drake and “PaulStretched” to 28 minutes by Dan Wilson; b) Foley
aircraft sounds from the film soundtrack; and c) dialogue from the film soundtrack, featuring
David Niven (Peter) and Kim Hunter (June). Assembled as an outline for a live work planned for
the “Writtle Calling/2 Emma Toc” radio project, it pretends to be nothing more than a tentative
exorcism of the overwhelming feelings this film sequence provokes in me – which are such that I
can never watch it without bursting into tears. (It is surely designed to allow one to burst into tears
in the dark). I have the DVD but have yet to get beyond this opening, which I must have watched a
hundred times.
The piece quite accidentally functions as an antidote to its allusive usage in the opening ceremony
of the 2012 London Olympic Games, of which exercise in spectacular infantilism I was not aware
until I started googling to check my references. Ceremony director Danny Boyle and I both featured
in a 2009 newspaper article, the layout of which was such as to allow our faces to be pressed
precisely together when its pages were closed – in a print media kiss as absurd as the radio romance
of Peter and June is sublime.

Show 387: Latesummer_Night’s_Dream (diving for pearls) by Paulo Raposo , Radio Zero, PT

The perfect timing for shell hunting is immediately before and after low tide. At this timing, clandestine shell hunters suddenly come from the dunes and cross the low waters on foot. The small boats are stranded in the sand gently moving with the wind and soft south currents. The shell workers are now not only fisherman or related, but also people that have other activities or jobs, even lawyers, and they spend hours on the water to get 3 to 8 kg of clams to make a living.

This collected field-recordings from and near the sand banks are edited and overlap different places where the shell hunting persists as a clandestine way of life.