Radio
Temporary Media Collective
Softening
Daunt
06.07.24 - 07.07.24
1 – untitled (post-work chimeras), 1h38m
sound, moveable horn speaker sculptures
2 – untitled (listening out)
sound, horn speaker, canal hydrophone, ambient microphone
3 – Vanishing Point, 1h38m
sound, horn speaker, car mat, rearview mirror, air freshener
4 – untitled (transmitter)
uni-directional UHF antenna, FM radio transmitter set to 108.00FM
5 – untitled (receiver)
sound, car radio tuned to 108.00FM, speaker cone, aerial
(1h38m piece played across 3 speakers including sonic experiments produced over the six-weeks)
How do I put into words the myriad thoughts, feelings and experiences of the past six weeks?
I came into this residency feeling the anxious weight of the current moment. I was witnessing the many injustices and horrors taking place across the world and felt helpless and angry. As a response, I began to question how we got to this point. I was researching neoliberal capitalism, searching for exits and trying to imagine a better future. I started questioning the relationship between sound and hegemonic power and how, through my practice, I could use it as a tool for change. I decided to investigate the potential of communal sound-making and listening as a radical political practice. Over the last six weeks, I have shared this space with many different people, through workshops and collaborations, making sound together and actively listening. Importantly, the goal was to not find any answers but to experience and learn collectively.
As an artist without a studio, I was surprised at the validation and permission which this space has given me. It was only possible to do this residency as I continued to work my day job as a technician, booking bits of leave here and there to increase my studio time. I would not be able to afford a regular studio space, so residencies are the only feasible option. This is the case for most artists across the capital. The fact that artists are unable to afford space to work is disgraceful. Extortionate rents, the decimation of government funding and a general lack of value placed on the arts has produced this situation.
And that’s what the work in this space speaks to…
Anxiety, anger, hopelessness, the banality of capitalism, a post-capitalist future, a world without meaningless work. The freedom to dream, to experience joy, to share and produce collectively. Hauntology, lost futures, counterculture. The feeling of sitting in a car, watching the world outside pass by rapidly.
But if you ask me what it really means, I don’t know. It’s a manifestation of thoughts and feelings from the past six weeks.
Some thoughts…
The image of the horn speaker. Its oral resemblance, a mouthpiece. A symbol of power, of control, authority and therefore oppression. What does the architecture of these speakers imbue in the sound they reproduce? It becomes loaded with this history. There is a distant quality to their sonic reproduction. As if channelling sound from elsewhere, an unknown place. Strange chimeras, sentinels of a post-capitalist future.
I became interested in radio through research into the countercultural movements of the 60s and 70s, specifically the Italian Autonomia movement. Radio was used as a radical tool for activism. The work in this space is being broadcast live on 108.00FM to the local area. This is pirate radio and therefore illegal. Can you govern sound?
The transmission and reception of radio signals also relates to a central theme that emerged from the work as it developed, that of feedback loops. Not only in the sense of audio feedback, but in a cybernetic and philosophical sense. I’m still working out why this has happened and what it means.
This is only the beginning of this work. I don’t have any answers, all that I know is that to create a more equal future we must desert the world as it is currently constituted and create space for the collective capacity to produce, care and enjoy.
I want to extend my sincere gratitude and thanks to those who have shared this beautiful space with me, for your inspiration and company:
Bryony Wong, Samuel Thompson-Plant, John Anthony Thadicaran, Noah Berrie, Felix Taylor, Martyn Riley, Benjamin Harrison, Maxine Hayes, Stella Chin-ting Yang, Reid Dudley Peirson, Rupert Galea, Jeremy Kent, Bella Okuya, Othello De’Souza-Hartley, Donald Hutera, Jo Stockham, Wanling Xu, Lip Wieckowski, Kuba Ocean
Performance by Temporary Media Collective
Sunday 7th July