[ GUNST ]

radio hours
radia #518: hours after hours + radia #386: radio dreaming
[pls. scroll down for english version]

mit radio zeit verbringen. träumend. stunden um stunden. keine kunst? in diesem fall schon.

was sonst würden wir von radia erwarten, als dass alltagspraktiken in radiokunst transformiert werden? so auch in diesem fall.

zunächst verbringen wir unsere radiostunden mit sam longmore in den räumen eines gebäudes in auckland.
im anschluss lauschen wir den radioträumen, die anna keleher and claire coté zwischen irland, england und new mexiko austauschen.

credits und hintergrundinformationen: siehe unten.

[english]

spending time with radio. dreaming. hours by hours. that's like taking candy from a baby. but not: art. yet, in this case…

indeed. that's what radio artists are doing. transforming everyday situations and practices into audible art. just like sam longmore does it exploring a building in auckland, hours by hours:

"This composition was recorded at night in six different rooms and liminal spaces within a certain building in central Auckland, New Zealand. The history, location and daily life of the building itself may or may not be relevant to the piece, but this set of conditions is as follows. This building houses the Audio Foundation, Auckland's most recognisable locational node of sound culture and experimental music. It was, formerly, a tie factory for a local manufacturer which, in an antipodean bid for faux-continental sophistication, called itself 'Parisian ties'. Now no neckties, and indeed hardly any clothing, are made in New Zealand. But the building is still busy working, nurturing a resolutely self-aware locality in regards to the sonification of place, with rooms containing a sound library, a gallery space, a small performance venue, studios and workshop spaces, an office and small shop housing hens-teeth rare local runs of multi-format limited edition pressings, as well as its own low power FM radio station, AFM.

These rooms were entered by the artist at night, with a microphone and a recording device. The gain was set to high and the microphone was left 'to do its work', without guidance, the artist immediately leaving the scene, not monitoring the sound. In subsequent takes, the sounds of these room-ambiences, these (near) 'silences', were played back into the rooms, and re-recorded, creating an accumulative and self-referential circuit in which the resonant frequency of each room began to emerge. In editing the piece together from the resulting audio six separate rooms are sequenced together. Listening back to these, their subtle shifts, it is as though witnessing a mysterious formal experiment, the alignment of each room emphasizing the difference within the gesture's repetition, the magnification of the room-tone and the resulting 'presence of absence' undulating like waves. Signaled by no intermediary save the change in resonant frequency, the shifts subtly become a sounding-out of the dimensions of walls, staircases and other architecture, an aural mapping, a blind yet acutely aware material and physical cartography of the space which Sam describes as 'an overall picture' of the space.

This work joins a compositional tradition of sound works exploring the resonant frequency of discrete spaces through repetition. Alvin Lucier's 'I am Sitting in a Room', through Jacob Kierkegaard's '4 Rooms' . The absence of any kind of riginating signal, as well as Longmore's explicit removal of his own body from the scene of recording, extends these practices toward an accumulating analysis of something that sounds close to silence, within the after-hours existence of rooms dedicated, in their everyday life, to sound. If Longmore's minimalism relies on an analysis of the formal aspects of recording, it is also deeply interested in the chaotic aesthetics of noise, the conflict between the non-intentionality of improvisation and the expectations of findings in compositional practice. Such a dialectic allows the emergence of traces, an uncovering of things normally inaudible. Perhaps that's why, in the absence of any signal to be obliterated, we might not be so surprised when these 'field recordings of the act of recording' themselves start to speak – to sing like choirs – at certain points. Or uncover, as Sam writes, 'the tension between the resonance of each space and the non-existence of silence – the former always tending toward dominance with the latter inevitably cropping up a a disruption'." [S.L.]

Sam Longmore would like to thank Jeff Henderson and Chris Cudby at The Audio Foundation for their support in the making of this piece.

Grounded in the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Samuel Longmore's practice and research occurs in the spaces where his interrelated concerns for the experience of aural perception, the phenomenology of architectural space, field recording as compositional action and the para-ontologies of sound:silence / signal:noise, overlap.

afterwards, we'll listen to radio dreams between ireland, england and new mexico/u.s., collected by anna keleher and claire coté:

"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." [A.K./C.C./L.G.]

credits:
miss.gunst would like to thank the following artists and sound collectors:
jovica for the space machine, corsica s for some beautiful radiator sounds;
samuel longmore and radio one 91fm, dunedin/nz, as well as anna keleher, claire coté and soundart radio, dartington/uk, for their radio hours;
and as always: radia.fm radio art network for being a crowd of incredibly creative partners.

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