Transmissions
Infinity = Zero
Alyssa Moxley (US 2014)
Alyssa Moxley (US 2014)
31 min
Audio Walks for Armchair Listening Mini Series
In Jorge Luis Borges’ story The Library of Babel, the world is made up of an infinite network of hexagonal libraries containing all possible iterations of books with 410 pages and 22 characters. Books can resemble each other in all but one letter. Some volumes can be read in multiple languages with entirely different interpretations. Others have meaning only coincidentally. The librarians who inhabit this world are overwhelmed with information, most of which is nonsense. In a search for deliberate meaning, many wander through the libraries in a quest for the Crimson Hexagon, a library containing books of small format, illustrated, magical, and containing revelatory insight.
Infinity = Zero produces the conditions for radio listeners to sculpt senseless cacophonies into form through their movement as they walk the halls and navigate obscure corners of the stairwells of 37 South Wabash, Chicago. In a participative choreography beginning at The Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, listeners will take the path of those who search for the archival material of insight and meaning within books, people, objects, and architecture. Fractured and collaged narratives create ambiguous worlds where the fictional world of hexagonal libraries interacts with the environment of the Sharp building’s hallways and archival collections.
Produced and Narrated by : Alyssa Moxley
Composed for broadcast on Radius FM from The Joan Flasch Artist Book Library
Radius is an experimental radio broadcast platform established in 2010 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Radius produces, exhibits, and distributes work by radio and transmission artists from around the world. Listen via wavefarm
Fear Of Missing Out: Halima
Jesse Lawson (UK 2022)
Jesse Lawson / Halima Jibril (UK 2022)
30min
Fear of Missing Out gives the microphone to young people living in the UK to talk about about topics we wish we'd learnt in school. Every episode, a new presenter goes on a personal journey through the bits of British history that people aren't talking about enough.
In March 2022, a report came out about Child Q: a 15 year old black secondary school student from London, who was strip searched by the police in her own school. 22 year old Halima moved to England from Ireland when they was 14. Hearing about Child Q felt like a breaking point for her own resilience to racism in the UK. Halima looks into the history of the criminalisation of black communities in the UK, which for Halima – and Child Q – started at school.
Produced by Jesse Lawson
Co Produced and Narrated by : Halima Jibril
A Boldface Production, supported by the Audio Content Fund.
The Lido
Dennis Funk , Paula Barros (US 2022)
Dennis Funk, Paula Barros (US 2022)
36min
On a little island sandwiched between Miami Beach and mainland Florida sits an old pink apartment complex called The Lido. It’s unlike anything around it; a remnant of an old Miami. One of the tenants, Paula Barros, guides us through this colourful building and the colourful people who live there. There’s Eddie, the exhausted HOA Board President, a stickler for rules and a sucker for his cat. Evan, an aspiring travel influencer trying to work through hundreds of bucket list goals. Ragnar, an amateur taxidermist. Payami, who only calls himself that because it rhymes with Miami.
A charming place specific peice narrated and recorded by one of the residents who uses her microphone to get to know her neighbours a little better and starts to get involved in the search for a missing cat.
(The 11th is a podcast that publishes an entirely new and ambitious issue on the 11th of every month. It could be one episode, or three, or more. It’s a mystery box made up of reported series and personal journeys; fiction, musicals, deep investigative journalism and intimate conversations. Inspired by the experience of opening a magazine you love every month and not knowing what exactly you will get, but trusting that something engaging and true will be waiting for you. Each issue, a different voice. Every month, something new.)
Produced and Recorded by Dennis Funk, Kristen Torres, Paula Barros
Narrated by Paula Barros
From Pineapple Street Studios / Written in Air
Come Sunday
Darell Grant (US 2021)
Darrell Grant (US 2021)
108min
Audio Walks for Armchair Listening Mini Series
Designed as a sound walk this piece works equally well as a pure listening experience, let the voices and music take you to the churches of Portland in the US.
Portland’s inner-northeast neighbourhoods were once home to over 200 Black churches. The remaining wooden and brick buildings, ranging from tiny storefronts to imposing brick edifices, are the inspiration for 'Come Sunday'.
Created by jazz artist and composer Darrell Grant, 'Come Sunday' is a pilgrimage in sound and time that winds through the King, Humboldt, and Alberta neighbourhoods — once the heart of Oregon’s largest Black community.
Beginning in DeNorval Unthank Park and culminating at Bethel A.M.E. Church, the oldest continuously operating Black church in Oregon, the soundwalk passes thirteen houses of worship that stand as islands documenting the rich history, hopes, and community ties that wove together a community. Combining oral history, African-American spirituals, poetry, historical texts, jazz piano, new music, and the sounds of the neighbourhood, Come Sunday paints an aural portrait of community inspired by the singular institution at its heart — leading the fight for justice, serving the vulnerable, holding the community in good times and bad — the Black church.
Produced and Narrated by Darell Grant
Commissioned by Third Angle New Music
No Birds Land
Tamsin Grainger (UK 2021)
Tamsin Grainger (UK 2021)
6 min
Audio Walks for Armchair Listening Mini Series
If a bird could write a poem maybe it would sound like this?
This is the sound poem for No Birds Land, an art and sound installation in the Trinity Tunnel on the Edinburgh cycle path network.
Before and after entering the tunnel, the air is full of birdsong; inside there is little or none. This sound-art installation recognises that no birds land or alight there (although occasionally one flies through), that it is a sort of 'No Man's Land' for birds, though humans built the sandstone structure to transport goods and each other between Granton Harbour and the rest of the city.
Written and Performed by : Tamsin Grainger
Bricks: Bristoler Chronik
Cliff Andrade (UK 2021)
Cliff Andrade / Bricks (UK 2021)
45 min Episode 5 of 6
Audio Walks for armchair lsitening
Bricks Podcast is a chance to listen into the individual worlds of artists and creatives. Commissioned by Bricks, the episodes delve into the practice and storytelling of unique topics.
A walk to a place long forgotten becomes the basis for a rumination on memory, place, and the creation of personal identities. Cliff Andrade’s internalised audio adventure into the unique mental state entered into when walking.
More here
Written and Hosted by Cliff Andrade
Bricks Podcast
Listening To The Political Protests in Minsk, Belarus
Pavel Niakhayeu (BY 2021)
Pavel Niakhayeu (BY 2021)
29min
Audio Walks for Armchair Listening Mini Series
In this audio-essay you’ll hear how Minsk sounded during the political protests of 2020-2021, how the protesters and the state are fighting for the space with voices, noises and music. The field recordings are the starting points for a discussion on the multifaceted role of sound in claiming the urban and political space in Belarus.
An audio-paper created for 'Walking as a Question' conference (Prespa, Greece, 4-17 of July 2021). Pavel Niakhayeu tells a (part of the) story of the political protests in Belarus through the perspective of a right to walk out your house to voice your protest. There were no Covid-lockdowns in Belarus, but walking in the streets at ‘the wrong time / wrong place’, the very act of coming out of your house is political and can have dramatic consequences – arrest, fine, beating, even death.
Produced and Narrated by : Pavel Niakhayeu
Discovered on Walk Listen Create
XMTR Radio Hour Ep19 : Cities and Memory
Social Broadcasts (UK 2022)
Produced by Social Broadcasts / Cities and Memory (UK 2022)
60 min / Episode 19 of 19
An hour dedicated to Cites and Memory, one of the world’s largest sound projects, with more than 1,000 artists contributing to our goal of remixing the world, one sound at a time.
Every location on the Cities and Memory sound map features 2 sounds, the original field recording of that place and a reimagined sound that presents that place and time as somewhere else, somewhere new. There are over 5,000 sounds featured on this sound map, spread over more than 100 countries and territories. We’ll visit a selection and keeping with the concept you will hear the original field recording of a place followed by a re-imagined piece.
Featuring:
1. Duet for breaking waves and the horizon by Cities and Memory (Caloura in the Azores)
2. Lockdown thunderstorm in Oxford by Cities and Memory (Oxford)
3. Chongqing Docks by Andy McDade (Chaotianmen Dock, Chongqing, South West China recorded by Ian MacArthur)
4. The loneliness of the late-night station by Cities and Memory (Berlin at Bellevue station recorded by Cristina Iscenco)
5. It’s not a wave it’s a river by Cristina Marras (Carlo Scarpa, Antivole Italy)
6.The Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo in Venice by de Velden (Venice, Italy)
7. Echoes by Bill Stevens (Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, New York, USA)
8 A recording of a story 'Alfons and the Magic Christmas Tree featured on HCJB’s DX Party Line hosted by Clayton Howard. Recorded by Paul Rawdon, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive for the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio.
9 War on Hugs by Kid KinAn hour dedicated to Cites and Memory, one of the world’s largest sound projects, with more than 1,000 artists contributing to our goal of remixing the world, one sound at a time.
Cities and Memory is always open to submissions from field recordists, sound artists, musicians or anyone with an interest in exploring sound worldwide.
Follow the series
The Waves: Queens
Erinn Dhesi (UK 2022)
Applied Stories / Erinn Dhesi (UK 2022)
21 min Episode 5 of 5
Waves is five audio fiction productions exploring the contemporary impact of Britain’s colonial past.
A statue of Queen Victoria in Leamington Spa’s town centre becomes much more than an old monument, with dramatic and outrageous results.
Written by Erinn Dhesi
Directed by Gitika Buttoo
Starring : Vimal Korpal, Bharti Patel, Dilan Raithatha, Ravneet Sehra Elexi Walker
Made by Holy Mountain in association with Tamasha Theatre Company and supported by the Audio Content Fund for Applied Stories
The Letter S
Chris Brookes (CA 2001)
Chris Brookes (CA 2001)
54min
Whispers in the Air
On December 12th, 1901 Guigliermo Marconi received the world's first trans-Atlantic wireless signal on the cliff just above Chris Brook’s Battery Radio studio. Or... did he?
This beautifully poetic audio work combines fact and fiction, reality and construction to tell the story of the beginning of radio and sound waves. The perfect place to start for any budding audiofile.
Produced by Chris Brookes - Battery Radio
Created for the 2001 centenary of Marconi's transmission. First broadcast: ABC "Classic FM" Dec. 12, 2001.
Special Commendation, Prix Marulic 2002
Atlantic Journalism Award 2002