A Grandmother marvels despite the virus she is able to continue gardening as she has always done and the birds will always keep singing. She listens to the distance sounds now. Isolated voices of people, a child next door. A fly. The garden is a sanctuary, vibrant of living and growing, death is not present. Occasionally she hears planes overhead, she wonders if they bring PPE. A long away siren. A conversation with a passing man, who tells her a women with the same name as her own was buried this week. Purerehua the roaring hovering stirs the final lament and farewell.
As a sound artist living in brazil, i bear in mind the idea of broadcasting. Distances spray along different lines and overlapping spatial identities. but there are fixed spaces which identity and segment this vast space yet multiple.
The piece is composed of three distinct moments & interests that collapse & run in parallel, the saxophone used as machine, the field recordings (here in the sertão, in particular) & the space/time manipulation through diverse fragmentation and aa labour of modification from the sound files themselves provided through a physical process.
Brazil is a complex location. Indeed it crosses through a mobile variation of spaces, continuously shaping and interacting beyond geography stereotypes. The piece attempts thus to reach an imaginary, immediate and simultaneous aural access to various locations, where I was always and now no longer visit. The image is from one of these locations.
Where i live in, up in the northeast, makes me wonder how to pose interrogations and singularities which are kept invisible when thinking of Brazil as a whole. Departing from this, i try to present my work, not only agains this fixed identity, but mainly and obviously as a personal process of sound -making
Thelmo Cristovam, born 1975, lives and works in Olinda, Pernambuco, northeast region of Brazil. Improviser & composer, his academic background is in physics and mathematics, but he is an independent researcher in psychoacoustics. Breath/throat (sax, trumpet, trombone, flute) & electromagnetic waves (satellites/radio) are the main focus on his free improvisation performances and production/recording nowadays. His range of research/poetics includes radio art, noise/drone & field recordings based compositions. Besides his own production, he has given workshops on deep listening, sound art and field recordings, subjects that are the focus of many of his works, besides electroacoustic compositions and free improvisation. He also works as a sound designer for local short films and does research and sound engineering to several projects.
Last winter, France experienced the longest strike in its modern history. Launched in opposition to a pension reform project, the strikers’ demands very quickly joined the sectors already struggling in a deleterious socio-economic context: health, justice, university, transport, energy, arts, education and media converged in the streets with the gilets jaunes aka yellow vests that had been demonstrating and occupying roundabouts for more than a year. Many alliances were formed: lawyers took up the song of the yellow vests, strikers from Radio France investigated a strike by cleaning women, queer collectives defended a striking bus driver fired for homophobic insult, even artists joined the procession, that preceded the unions in the streets and formed the majority of the demonstrations. This social movement is a multitude that agrees on one thing: to get rid of Macron and his world. Only the containment due to the coronavirus will put an end to this political sequence, and the reform will finally be suspended.
This episode of Radia is a subjective attempt to put this moment in sound. Recordings made during demonstrations, sound creation and political reflections are mixed to illustrate the bubbling political atmosphere and sonic environment of this period.
Interventions: Judith Butler : « On Demonstrating Precarity » – 2015 Michel Foucault : « Interview at the Université Catholique of Louvain » – 1981 Michel Foucault : « Debate with Noam Chomsky on Human Nature » – 1971 Hakim Bey : « Waiting for Revolution » in T.A.Z – 1991, read by Stephanie Boubli & DinahBird
Nicolas Montgermont is a sound and radio artist who explores the physicality of waves in its different forms. For more than 15 years, he has been designing artistic devices that explore the poetic essence of waves: reality of waves in a volume, vibration of materials, richness of invisible radio landscapes, musicality of noises, antenna sculpture, listening and broadcasting territory… and is currently developing a work on the links between radio-art and politics. He makes sound performances, installations, records and compositions, alone or in collaboration (chdh, Art of Failure, Cécile Beau, RYBN, Pali Meursault…) and participates in several sound and radio creation collectives (∏node, Yi King Operators, les Sons Fédérés, Jef Klak, l’Acentrale). His projects have been shown in many art centers, museums, concert halls and self-managed venues in Europe and elsewhere. He teaches sound and multimedia creation at the ENS Louis Lumière and at Paris 8.
It has been many months now that we’ve all been asking ourselves : how’s life in the time of viruses? The answers have been constantly changing and probably still will.
During the long months of lockdown in Italy, Radio Papesse joined forces with the artists and producers at USMARADIO and became an amplifier for the CROWN project. Like many others, fighting the lockdown through radio.
So… what’s happened exactly? For 30 days, every day, artists from all over the world came together for a live improvised session of radio, music, words and sound experiments together with Roberto Paci Dalò.
To play together from different locations, yet united through radio. To listen together, from different locations, thanks to the medium of radio.
This RADIA show presents bits and pieces from some of the CROWN sessions, sewn together by fragments of a long conversation with Roberto Paci Dalò.
Enjoy!
Included in this show are excerpts from:
CROWN n.11 _ Johann Merrich / L’Impero della Luce CROWN n.30 _ with Lello Voce CROWN n.22 _ with Paolo Dellapiana CROWN n.23 _ with Zahra Mani
+++ Warning: THIS AUDIO CONTAINS HIGH-PITCHED FREQUENCIES! If you suffer from musicogenic seizures, you may find this content disturbing. +++
Control is a sonic journey through stories of people living with epilepsy. The composition was created in collaboration with the multimedia project A Life Electric, from which few stories were chosen and re-interpreted.
The composition is an artistic exploration of the world that surrounds epilepsy, a world often made up of silence, indifference and fears, but also of pure energy, inexplicable phenomena, and still today enveloped in charm and mystery.
Dedicated to all those people who don’t have a voice.
Produced by Luca Piparo Texts and arrangements by Fraser Morton, Luca Piparo Music by Domenico Scjaino, Luca Piparo Voices by Damara, Fraser, Sandra, Shameek, Steffi, Suki, Veronika, Zelah Copyrights CC-BY-NC -@ Luca Piparo
In collaboration with Far Features Ltd:
A Life Electric is a multimedia documentary project exploring epilepsy experiences globally with the goal of bringing humankind’s most misunderstood brain condition out of the shadows through art and education. The project draws upon a hybrid of multimedia techniques to connect people, communities and society to the “lives of epilepsy”.
We enter epilepsy through doorways of personal experiences via interviews, letters, free-writing, biographical filmmaking, documentary techniques, abstract photography, typographical design, sound design, audio storytelling, digital media, print books, magazines and exhibitions to create a multimedia project accessible to all.
The A Life Electric project is personal for writer-director Fraser Morton, which started in his notebook, inspired by the life of his older brother, Blair. Since beginning the project in 2018, Fraser has held more than 100 interviews in person and over the phone. Along with his partner Eszter Papp, the pair have also collected a series of portraits, which will be displayed in photo exhibitions. The A Life Electric feature film is in development and book also coming soon in 2020. Please write to Fraser about book enquiries here: fraser@farfeatures.com
Book release 2020 Photo Exhibitions coming 2020 Feature Film in development Creator/Writer/Director: Fraser Morton Photographer/Producer: Eszter Papp Editor: Sadiq Mansor Designer: Ali Kelly Mentor/Writing Editor: Jade Richardson IT: Mike Cashin Additional Reporting: Risyiana Muthia, Rob Bain Produced by: Far Features Ltd
I wish our activities were more social, and social in an anarchic way.
– John Cage
KIN by Usmaradio and Roberto Paci Dalò is a radiophonic city scale performative project that began the week before the performing arts Santarcangelo Festival (Italy) with a workshop session by The School of Radio, then continued throughout the official program with 120 non-stop hours of radio. Santarcangelo has been occupied with the airing of a programme which included artists present at the festival, the citizens themselves and original materials created by the working group. All this has been diffused throughout public and private spaces with listening points (including an outdoor large P.A.), improvisations, electronics, and collaborative radio performances with artists not physically present at the festival. Texts by Franco Bifo Berardi, Paolo Fabbri, Gabriele Frasca and Donna Haraway. KIN is for Paolo Fabbri (1939-2020)
KIN team Francesco Angelini, Teresa Chiauzzi, Bárbara Ermeti, Sara Guazzarini, Irene Aurora Paci, Roberto Paci Dalo, Paolo Petrangolini, Alessandro Renzi, Margherita Wolenski.
participants / authors Tobia Bandini, Gloria Barbanti, Claudio Basso, Davide Buglisi, Margherita Kay Budillon, Alessandra Cappelletti, Chiara Cecconello, Alice Citarella, Paolo Dellapiana, Elena Lunghi, Federica Marra, Alessandro Mazzoni, Mariagloria Posani, Roberto Scappin, Francesco Toscani
speakers Franco Bifo Berardi, Andrea Borgnino, Tiziano Bonini, Anna Bromley, Janete El Haouli, Pinotto Fava, Gabriele Frasca, Anna Friz, Ilaria Gadenz, Lorenza Ghinelli, Gianni Gozzoli, Carola Haupt, Wissal Houbabi, Eleftherios Krysalis, Hardi Kurda, Federica Minzitti, Graciela Martínez Matías, Johann Merrich / L’Impero della Luce, Leonardo Montecchi, Iolanda Pensa, Oderso Rubini, Rodolfo Sacchettini, Nathalie Singer, Stefano Spada, Christiane Voss, Jonathan Zenti, Elisabeth Zimmermann
production Usmaradio, Giardini Pensili in collaboration with Scuola di Radiofonia – The School of Radio, Santarcangelo Festival 2050, ImperfettoArt, Radio Lada, Galerie Mazzoli, Università degli Studi della Repubblica di San Marino, Centro Studi e Ricerche José Bleger, Radio Papesse, Scuola comunale di musica G. Faini – Associazione Banda Città di Santarcangelo, shift.fm – bauhaus.fm – Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
radioworks for this radia programme (running order) 1. Respirare camminando – Federica Marra 2. Impero notturno part I – Gloria Barbanti 3. Futuro Fantastico – Alessandro Mazzoni 4. Avvistamenti ep I – Margherita Kay Budillon, Chiara Cecconello and Francesco Toscani 5. Il mondo è un bel posto – Alice Citarella and Davide Buglisi 6. Racconti dall’Apocalisse part VIII – Claudio Basso and Paolo Dellapiana 7. Messa per l’Apocalisse – Tobia Bandini 8. Respirare. Audioguida per post-umani – Alessandra Cappelletti 9. Manifesto per un futuro futuribile post queer – Maria Gloria Posani, Claudio Basso, Margherita Kay Budillon and Elena Lunghi
Pictures by Chiara Bruschini, Claudia Borgia, Francesco Angelini, Alessandro Renzi
Usmaradio – Centro di Ricerca Interdipartimentale per la Radiofonia (CRIR) / Interdepartmental Research Centre for Radio Studies, a workplace of The School of Radio to develop an innovative radio pedagogy. Workshops, work sessions, meetings, presentations of live performance as sections of the project. Produced by UNIRSM | Università degli Studi della Repubblica di San Marino. usmaradio.org / theschoolofradio.org / unirsm.sm
Mix Me Tape #1: Trumpet Solo is a piece composed exclusively from previously published trumpet solos. The original material has been cut and rearranged to form a completely new piece of music.
The used trumpet solos appeared on the albums Brt Vrt Zrt Krt (Al Maslakh – 2005), No Cuts / No Overdubs / No Use of Electronics (Discrepant – 2019) and Cuts, Overdubs and Use of Electronics (Discrepant – 2019).
Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese comics author, visual artist, and musician born in Beirut in 1975. He is widely considered as one of the initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improvisation and experimental music scene. He is co-founder of Irtijal, an annual experimental music festival held in Beirut since 2001 (www.irtijal.org), and of Al Maslakh, the first label for experimental music in the region operating since 2005 (www.almaslakh.org). As a trumpet player, whether in solo performances or with long-lasting groups like “A” Trio, Kerbaj pushes the boundaries of the instrument and continues to develop a personal sound and an innovative language.
In 2015, Kerbaj was the recipient of a DAAD one-year artist in residency in Berlin. He lives and works in the German capital since.
Subespai – “City circles”: sound collage on urban canvas Scene. A nondescript hum smothers the echoes of a distant playground. The eeriness intensifies as the afternoon loses the daily battle against the evening soundscape. “Where is this?”. The sonic familiarity puts the name of a place on the tip of the tongue right as the movement changes, or does it? The hum left unannounced, that’s a fact; now there’s something else filling the space, something deeper, more spiritual even. Repetition gives way to flow; quietness prevails, for a while at least. Feedback turns into flares as the night falls. “Is this still the West?”. Continental lines may or may not have been crossed, the only way to find out is to wander further, facing novelty until everything becomes known again. A faint sadness lingers in the air. End of scene. Composed & performed by Subespai (Mauri Edo). Recorded by Matthew Syres. Subespai is Mauri Edo, a Sydney-based sound artist working with found sound, repetition and volume to explore and express complex thoughts and ideas on existence, society and the individual. www.subespai.net
Amauta Mixtapes is one of a four-part experimental acoustic reportage focused on epistemologies in resistance and sistered struggles. Assembled by Nomad Agency/Archive of Emergent Studies, a research studio and transdisciplinary platform that intersects advanced resilient practices, promotes studying against the grain, and claims the political space of research as the right to know and the right to imagine together. NÆS walks with artist David Muñoz Alcántara and curator Giovanna Esposito Yussif. This was commissioned for Latitude on Air – Unsettling Power Relations, 4-7 June, Berlin 2020, a project by the Goethe-Institut, in cooperation with reboot.fm and the Radio Netzwerk Berlin.
