It was autumn 2019. Britain on the eve of political upheaval, is split over the impending separation from Europe. Against this shifting background I wound my way on foot down the long valley to the Tamar river that separates Devon and Cornwall, and flows into those vast waters of the Sound. Two bridges placed side by side span the river at this point. I intended to cross the water via the pedestrian walkway on the road bridge. But I had to be quick. Ironically it was about to close that day for long term engineering works. Vertigo 282 is the soundtrack of my passage across, the narrative constantly shifting, slipping from action to inaction, from reality to fantasy, silence to noisiness, and like life it is on-going (until someone switches it off).
Sue Coulson is a visual fine artist using sound as part of her practice.
As radio programmes can time travel, this show comes from Radiocamp, Bodensee, in the year 3019. The inclusive, intergalactic nature of the camp is expressed through the many languages, human and otherwise, that tell this story.
Created by Haya Al Sawaf, Henning Luetje, Lara Possler, Lars Schmitz, Lerato Phiri, Loic Rodrigues, Luca Piparo, Luuk, Max, Reyhan Mutlu, Silke Bauer, Susanne Bayer at Radiocamp. Produced by Lucinda Guy at Soundart Radio.
Plugholes is a radio drama by sisters Catherine and Lucinda Guy. They have been collaborating all their lives, making up silly plays and songs. A woman embarks on a journey down the plughole with her bath water, becoming a pirate when she reaches the sea. As she is tossed around on the storms of capitalism, parenthood, environmental activism, and animal exploitation, the needle of her moral compass spins.
Credits: Written, recorded and mixed by Catherine and Lucinda Guy, january 2019 at The Worm/Klangendum Studio, Rotterdam. Produced by Lukas Simonis
with;
Lady – Catherine Guy.
Seahorse – Lucinda Guy.
Narrator – Nienke Terpsma.
Committee member – Rob Hamelijnck.
Additional music and roles by RE#SISTER:
Zeynep Aslan.
Marte Boomsma.
Mariëtte Groot.
Inge Hoonte.
Tamara van Suylekom.
Melanie Rieback.
If we could hear the voice of nature, what would it say? And could humans use technology to strengthen their connection with nature?
Starting with the music and letting this guide the story, the Assisi Machine is a thrilling murder mystery which puts electronic sound technology at the heart of the action.
The show features three drone music sound collages which help move the plot along.
Parts of the play are written in dramatic verse, a favourite form of Shakespeare and Goethe, which is almost unknown in recent times.
This piece is a sound meditation on impact of water; how sounds of water affect humans, and how human sound effect the aquatic ecosystem.
Using interviews, field recordings and archive footage (including from GM’s ‘Futurama’ exhibit of the New York World Fair of 1939), Bodies of Water looks at how we evolve and progress, and whether the tide of development we’ve been sold is actually taking us toward a destination we want to arrive at.
Produced and mixed by Laura Irving (Laurairving.co.uk). Mastered by Jean Paul DuBock
“The density of being makes it promiscuous, always touching everything else, unconcerned with differentiation. Anything is thing enough to party.”
– Ian Bogost “Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing”
Tony Whitehead is a field recordist from South Devon in the UK with a particular interest in quiet and the natural environment. He runs Very Quiet Records and helps organise the “Quiet Night In” concert series.
Broadcasting as spell casting – sending out our intentions into the atmosphere, allowing them to fall where they need to, affect who they may, and communicate our deeper desires, even when wrapped in other text, and encoded into radio waves or digital data.
At Radio V&A – an evening event at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, February 2016 – we invited people to think about their true messages, whilst reading and recording other texts. These texts, together with sine waves selected to stimulate change in the world, form sonic sigils, carriers for our plans and desires.
Thanks to all the contributors who attended our workshop, and to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
I woke up with a sense of dread. I had forgotten to do something important. What could it be?
One of those things that springs into my mind at inopportune moments, when I can’t do anything about it, or even write it down. Something that I had suddenly, and with panic, remembered this way many times over the last month, but failed to do anything about.
Oh yes, the radia show. We should have made one and we have left it too late. Think of all the poor artists, who would love, love, love to make a show for radia – I only needed to ask someone, when there was still enough time. Now, what to do? I should email the list with some inane and dishonest comment, like ‘Yes, we’re nearly there, just getting the jingles on…’ Then I fell asleep again, and forgot all about it.
The next day, at our studio: I came in while Alex was interviewing Heather on his show. Heather had brought her ukulele and was singing ‘spirit songs’ she had ‘received’. She asked me how old I was, I said I was born in 1973. Heather – Oh, you are a couple of years younger than me and Alex. You are going through your midlife crisis. (I don’t think I am.)
They were talking (on air) about Disneyland Paris. Alex said he had been there once as it was the location of a Buddhist meditation festival he attended.
I had Aunt Kate’s Day-By-Day book with me – A Thought, A Recipe, A Household Hint, for every day of the year. (1937). My plan was to read this out loud, play a few musical instruments, and loop the whole thing back through our webstream. When I got home later on, I said – that’ll have to do. I’ll edit some of my show and use it as our radia show.
If I were to attempt to artistically justify this piece of audio, I would argue that by looping Aunt Kate’s disgusting recipes (‘sweet omelette’, ‘skate salad’) and her cheery words, originally written for and marketed at young women trying to create homes for their husbands and children, we can fully explore the irritating, nagging and incessant voice that tells us all to be better people, cook worse food and remove stains from leather chairs. Also, that the rather random and destructive process of continually looping through the webstream, compressing the signal again and again, sometimes produces rather nice results.
