“That thing about repetition, that I just keep finding in so many bits of my life”

We visited the studios of craftspeople to learn more about their creative process, the materials they use, how they came to do what they do. We recorded their voices and their work to create ‘the radio craftsperson’s toolbox’ – a collection of sounds for crafting new radio works that explore the creative process.

You will hear from:

Michael Honnor, printmaker

Hilary Burns, basketmaker

Taja, potter

Yuli Somme, feltmaker

Chris Taylor, ceramics

A collaboration between Soundart Radio, Devon Guild of Craftsmen and the Community Media Association. Produced by Alice Armstrong, Chris Booth, Sarah Gray, Lucinda Guy, Chris Mockridge and Shannon Mockridge.

Part 1. Imagine that we are speeding away  from the Earth
Part 2. Music of our Spheres

Transmissions is a radio piece that seeks to listen to the past. It is a collage of transmissions voyaging through human broadcast history and reaching past our own galaxy. The first part, Imagine that we are speeding away from the Earth, is based on the notion that everything we broadcast is still traveling from our planet out into space. As we move forward, we can hear our past. This section includes transmissions of all kinds, including Skype transmissions, mysterious numbers stations, broadcasts of rocket launches, interviews, songs, newscasts, popular songs, television themes, public service announcements, etc. The second part, Music of Our Spheres, uses recordings made by scientists interpreting readings from the Voyager and Cassini space probes. We hear sounds emitted by Earth (distinct whistlers shooting past and a “hiss” that sounds like breathing), Mars (small and metallic), Jupiter, and Saturn. The very last sound in the piece is the sound of the Big Bang as interpreted by Professor J. G. Cramer of Washington State University.

Lona Kozik is a pianist, composer and radio maker. “I play things. I write things. Sometimes I do both at the same time. Sometimes I play the things I write, but often times, I don’t.”  For more information, go to

http://radiopostcards.tumblr.com
http://lonakozik.wix.com/lona-kozik

1 x 28 minutes
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28 x 1 minute
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2 x 14 minutes
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14 x 2 minutes
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4 x 7 minutes
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7 x 4 minutes

Produced by Lucinda Guy at Soundart Radio Devon UK

Sophie Wilder has been making strange noises for over thirty years, initially at home but then as part of the legendary lost 80s band Well Crucial. Nowadays she intersperses infrequent improvisation as part of the A Band with weekly broadcasts of bizarre sounds on Soundart Radio.

Her home equipment consists of a couple of battered synth modules, a few musical toys and primitive recording equipment

Things Sophie likes

Electronic experimentation
Birdsong
Old Science fiction
Totnes
The great outdoors
Cats

Things Sophie hates

Convention
Capitalism
Broccoli
Winter
Spiders
Garden gnomes

Things Sophie is

A drifting clarifier
An experimenter
Usually late
An introvert

Things Sophie is not

Organised
Good at writing about herself

Sophie Wilder is not married, has no children, and does not live in Surrey.

Why Dogs?

It’s great to have an intelligent animal around. Maybe it’s time for human beings to take a step back.

Why Architecture?

Now more and more people are recognising the contribution dogs have made to architecture. Join us in a celebration of doggy design and canine construction.

Why Ergo Phizmiz?

Thanks for coming to lead a workshop on our Radio Anywhere project. And bringing along a rare photo of an architect dog. From that it was a short step for the Radio Anywhere Ambassadors to find a dog genius to interview, recordings from the dog relaxation spa, extensive reviews of building design, sounds of disgruntled cats, songs about dog builders, statements from pro-human-architect campaign groups and a machine that translates dogs thoughts.

Why Radio Anywhere?

Radio Anywhere Ambassadors meet to talk about radio ideas, produce work together, and to broadcast from their homes, streets, neighbourhoods, towns and planet with Soundart Radio’s little-studio-in-a-box. As they do this they will inspire more radio makers they meet along the way, as part of our station’s redefinition as a network of small connected studios.

Noises and voices by Robert Davidson, David Harbott, Lona Kozik, Danielle Rose, Ariane Delaunois, Alice Armstrong, Remi Romeder, Chris Mockridge and Jenny Wellwood.

Assembled by Ergo Phizmiz and Lucinda Guy

Radio Dreaming Episode 1: Dreams, Food and the Edible Landscape.

One year ago contemporary artists Anna Keleher (Devon, England) and Claire Coté (New Mexico, USA) were busy DREAMING PLACE at Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark in Éire and Northern Ireland. Now, an international audience can share their sonic adventures via a series of radio broadcasts woven from their experience. Based on an ancient Celtic tradition that the land remembers everything, Radio Dreaming explores how the land speaks through dreamers.

DREAMING PLACE is about deepening and illuminating our relationship with Place and we are excited to be sharing our project with audiences around the globe. Radio is an exciting medium that enables artists to reach people in their own homes or cars, in cities, small towns or very rural settings, says Claire Coté.

In this first Radio Dreaming episode, listeners are invited to join Anna and Claire wild camping, eating, drawing, walking and kayaking their way through the Geopark to meet its people, places, creatures and things. Episode 1 features stories, conversations and soundscapes of dreams, food, and edible geopark landscapes.

Our broadcast gives protagonism to the diverse voices of these Geopark homelands. We really hope that Radio Dreaming will inspire others to listen and share stories in their own homeplaces, says Anna Keleher. Anna began her successful international collaborative partnership with Claire in 2007 at Dartington College of Art on the innovative MA Arts and Ecology. Together they continue to make audio journeys, radio broadcasts, drawings, sculptural installations and performative events, transcending the miles through internet technologies. The only thing they can’t share is a pot of tea.

Soundart Radio http://www.soundartradio.org.uk/

For more information visit www.dreamingplace.eu/radio

New York based composer Annie Gosfiled visited Dartington last November for a week long residency to develop her new work, Floating Messages and Fading Frequencies, based on the secret radio transmissions between British Intelligence and the Resistance movements in the Second World War.

This show for Radia features extracts of the concert performances of Floating Messages and Fading Frequencies and EWA7, and interviews with Annie Gosfield at Soundart Radio, with music performed by the Athelas Sinfonietta (Denmark), and the Annie Gosfield Trio, touring in the UK in November, 2011. Floaing Messages and Fading Frequencies was produced by 3rd Ear productions, with the Arts at Dartington. Radio edit produced by Lucinda Guy, Chris Booth and Ariane Delaunois

Annie Gosfield lives in New York City and divides her time between performing on piano and sampler with her own group and composing for many ensembles and soloists. Her work often explores the inherent beauty of non–musical sounds, and is inspired by diverse sources such as machines, destroyed pianos, warped 78 records, and detuned radios. She uses traditional notation, improvisation, and extended techniques to create a sound world that eliminates the boundaries between music and noise, while emphasizing the unique qualities of each performer. A 2012 fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, and the recipient of the 2008 Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ prestigious “Grants to Artists” award, Gosfield’s essays on composition have been published by the New York Times and featured in the book “Arcana II”. Active as an educator, she has taught composition at Princeton University, Mills College, and California Institute of the Arts.

www.thirdear.co.uk/projects/floating-messages-and-fading-frequencies
www.anniegosfield.com
www.soundartradio.org.uk

Originally I wrote the ‘Chiaroscuro’ piece as a the first part of a series of three texts discussing conversation with this piece looking into what might happen if a conversation of some importance goes awry. I then re-appropriated this same text as a script for radio when working toward my final Masters piece to see how such a piece could ‘work’ on the radio. Using a medium where listeners are used to hearing fresh content everyday, I played this piece for 8 days consecutively at the same time in the hope that the listener would get a sense of what was to come over that time. I then began to experiment with soundscapes such as this particular piece in which I have overlaid different readings on top of each other.

The original piece was recorded by many people to see how the script would be ‘translated’ from the page by each of the performers. When I gave the script to these performers I gave them no indication of ‘how’ to read it the idea being that this freedom would allow for greater input from each of the performers. This is why there can be such a huge discrepancy in terms of length/pace/emotional investment from each of the performers you will hear in this piece.
The fumblings for words, the pauses while each performer reads ahead on screen/page can be difficult to listen to and in this context the silences are intended as an example of the notion of ‘ear-strains’ in spoken word that Steven Connor has spoken of.

Each piece remained unchanged from whichever rudimentary form of recording device/software it was created in until this point in the experimentation process. I have not edited any of these readings I have simply created a ‘chorus’ of voices for this piece so as to bring in questions of ‘hearing voices’ and to hopefully extend the idea of ‘chaos in the mind’ further.

Looking at the state of mind of an individual using technological references (such as ‘the communicating without wires’ moment) and ‘received’ stories – such as the like of the dog episode in this piece which feels like a moment spent exploring an urban myth- is I think an interesting method of exploring the notion of ‘autobiography,’ which is what many of my works have dealt with. Hopefully this work in particular takes on some of what Gregory Whitehead is looking for from this form by using this approach of overlapping truths/awareness and mental health issues when he states in his ‘Speleology’ essay,

“The goal of radio text is not to distort or impress, but to bring deeply buried desires and insights back into the light”.

The speakers are
Amy Delgado, Jenny Wellwood, John Barnes and Takako Kido.

Anna Keleher is a contemporary artist  who collaborates with people, places and things. While you were snug indoors this Christmas, Anna was winter camping at Sierra Subbéticas Geopark in Southern Spain where the limestone geology has attracted a vast array of life to seek shelter in its cavities. This audio piece is a journey into the richness of these Andalusian ancestral homelands. Have fun and don´t forget your raincoat!