[ GUNST ]

water colours
radia #260: the village is quiet + radia #190: black water brown water
[pls. scroll down for english version]

wasser, farben, wasserfarben.

im ersten teil der sendung hören wir, was in einer ausstellung mit aquarellen (nicht) zu sehen ist.
anschliessend folgen wir den flüssen farbigen wassers.

credits und hintergrundinformationen: siehe unten

[english]

water, colours, water colours.

in the first part of the show we'll listen to what can(not) be seen in an exhibition of water colours:

"Australian artist Patrick Hartigan exhibited a series of water colours in 2009 entitled 'The Village is Quiet' – a show which was complemented by the publication of a series of short stories and a limited release dvd under the same title. Producer g.bert invited Hartigan to record a reading of a selection of the stories as a gesture toward a continued multiplication of media in Hartigan's work through (and despite) which the 'village remains quiet'.
Hartigan's facility in isolating and expressing the subtleties and idiosyncracies of the simple everyday life of an unnamed contemporary Slovakian village in fact borders on a mythical expression – a kind of singular exemplarity. Littered as his work is with post-soviet remnants (the public address system that still 'broadcasts' via loudspeakers, for example) and the consequences of EU expansion (the evident desertion of youth), Hartigan's village and its eloquent quietude speaks a kind of obscure generality (seen, as it is, through the eyes of an antipodean outsider finding feet and language in the village's almost empty streets and homes)." [S.M.]

afterwards, we'll follow channels of coloured waters:

"'Black Water Brown Water' is an evolving sound piece, originally commissioned as a sound walk for the Stourport canal basins in Worcestershire, UK. The basins form an intersection between the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal and the river Severn and the piece is really about the relationship between these two water systems. My 'way in' was the experience of standing on a lock-gate that separates the canal and the river and on one side there was this chaotic, gushing, brown water and on the other, the water was controlled, black and serene. Black Water Brown Water. The piece is based on an imagined dialogue between the great canal engineer James Brindley and Sabrina, Goddess of the river Severn – but in a way it is a dialogue between the two water systems themselves with these two characters giving voice to the myths that represent them. The language of the work draws heavily on John Milton's 'Comus' and to a lesser extent Michael Drayton's 'Poly Olbion', both of which make reference to Sabrina. Additionally, I've taken a lot from the biography of James Brindley – both real and imagined.
In the original walk, visitors pick up an mp3 player and listen to the piece on a small, man-made island that sits between these water systems. This version though has been re-edited specifically for radia.fm." [J.P.]

credits:
miss.gunst would like to thank the following artists and sound collectors:
patrick hartigan and radio one 91fm, dunedin/new zealand, for his audible water colours;
david prior and sound art radio, dartington/uk, for drowning with us into coloured waters;
as well as radia.fm radio art network for being a crowd of incredibly creative partners.