Transmissions
In The Dark What’s New: The Meaning of Alexa
Owen Duff UK 2023)
The Owen Duff (UK 2022)
6 min
Owen Duff is an independent musician who also works part time for a London council. In the past couple of years he’s been experimenting with sound art, after taking a music masters course at Goldsmiths University.
“The Meaning of Alexa” is one of the pieces that he made on the course - an improvised piano and voice “duet” between Owen and an Amazon Echo smart speaker. It was originally a live performance, with improvised questions and piano playing in response to Alexa’s answer. Owen then edited and augmented this with sound design and also added in recordings that the Amazon Echo took itself, of him. It was inspired by writing on digital capitalism and neoliberalism by authors Han Byung-Chul, Wendy Brown and others.
Produced by: Owen Duff
My Synthetic Thoughts
Samuel Robinson ( 2023)
Samuel Robinson (UK 2023)
14 min
In 'My Synthetic Thoughts' the protagonist grapples with puzzling experiences, seeking meaning in a labyrinth of mental health, medication, memory, and the subconscious. Amidst the fog of unresolved time, their quest for understanding and peace becomes a poignant journey, revealing the intricate tapestry of their psyche.
Produced by Samuel Robinson
2000 Plus: Flying Saucers
Dryer/ Weenolsen (US 1950)
Dryer / Weenolsen - MBS (US 1950)
30 min
2000 Plus (aka Two Thousand Plus and 2000+) was an American old-time radio series that ran on the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1950 to 1952, in various 30-minute time slots. A Dryer Weenolsen production, it was the first adult science fiction series on radio using all new material.
The radio equivelant to a black and white saturday matine movie; dated, kitsch and a journey into another era.
Produced by : Sherman H. Dryer
Written by: Robert Weenolsen
The Peephole
Andrea Kristinsdottir (US/ISL 2023)
Andrea Kristinsdottir (US/ISL 2023)
10 min
A deepdive into a workplace bathroom. What exactly happens there other there other the obvious? Why would you not want to do the things that you’re supposed to do there?
Andrea Kristindottir likes to focus on the smallest everyday places that reveal musch more about the wider world around us.
Produced by: Andrea Kristindottir
The Crossing Guard Tapes: Tape 1 Side A
Jim Waters (US 2023)
Jim Waters (US 2023)
13 min
In a world where cities are playgrounds and playgrounds are arenas. Where arenas are battlegrounds, and battlegrounds are sectioned into streets and streets are bisected by school crosswalks and school crosswalks are the frontline in an ancient battle where crossing guards are the warriors that stand between the everyday, holding up a stop sign to the end of days... and the end of days is going way over 15 MPH/30 KPH in a school crossing zone.
When Mike Limbo gets hired as a Crossing Guard, he’s slowly dragged into an underground world he never knew existed…
You’ll never look at crossing guards (lollipop people in the UK) in the same way again.
Produced by : Jim Waters
This is Chicago: Alley
Supraphonic Studios (US 2023)
Supraphonic Studios (US 2023)
7 min, Episode 10 of 18
In an undisclosed alley, a diver finds divinity among the dumpsters. Bada bing, bada boom! Who knew dumpster diving could be so lucrative?
This series of short audio portraits from Chicago draws from the long lineage of oral history recording in the city, perhaps inspired by the likes of Studs Terkel and the assumption that everyone has a story if you just ask.
Produced and recorded by Stephen Pate and Ashlie Stevens
Created by Supraphonic Studios
Follow the series
Soft Life: Time
Alannah Chance and Axel Kacoutié (UK 2023)
Alannah Chance and Axel Kacoutié (UK 2023)
32 min 3 of 4
This four-part series takes the idea of ‘soft life’ as a launch off point to explore alternative ideas around work, time, the body and ecology emanating from Somerset House and beyond. They talk to radical thinkers, artists and writers, who are carving out these new ways of being in the body, centring the soft and the in-between, finding space for rest and looking at ways of expanding time beyond the clock.
How can we make time free?
This episode contemplates different ways of experiencing time beyond the linear, with Somerset House Studios artist Shenece Oretha on transforming time through the practice of listening, sociologist Judy Wajcman on unpicking progress from speed in the digital sphere and psychologist Dr Ruth Ogden on how our experience of time is relational and whether it’s possible to conceive of ‘free time’ in a modern world.
Produced by: Alannah Chance and Axel Kacoutié
Sound by: Axel Kacoutié and additional music by Ellen Zweig
Produced by Somerset Studios
The Battle of Lewisham
Skevos Loizou (UK 2018)
Skevos Loizou (UK 2018)
18 min
On August 13th 1977 The Battle of Lewisham played a major part in the start of the fall of the National Front in the UK. During the 1970s the NF had made major gains in elections and were building a racist movement. The NF organised a march through Lewisham is South London, they were physically confronted by the local comunity, trade unionists, and anti racisits. Even with Police protection the march capitulated. Set with the backdrop of the music of the time here are Stories from the Battle of Lewisham.
Producer - Skevos Loizou
You Didn't See Nothin' - Young Black Male
Invisible Institute / USG (US 2023)
Invisible Institute (US 2023)
31 min
Epsiode 1 of part investigation and part memoir, “You Didn't See Nothin” follows Yohance Lacour as he revisits the story that introduced him to the world of investigative journalism, and examines how its ripple effects have shaped his life over the past quarter-century.
In 1997, Lenard Clark was beaten into a coma by a gang of older white teens simply for being Black in a white neighbourhood. One of Lenard’s attackers was from a powerful Chicago family. The media quickly turned towards stories of reconciliation and racial healing, with cooperation by Black leaders and the attacker’s family. Yohance wasn’t having any of it. At the time of the attack, he was in his early 20s, writing plays, selling weed, and living at his dad’s house on the South Side of Chicago. Unable to stand by silently, he began working with a neighbourhood newspaper to investigate the vicious hate crime.
Reporting on the incident led him to grow increasingly disillusioned with journalism.From USG Audio and the Invisible Institute – creators of the 2020 Pulitzer Finalist podcast “Somebody” – “You Didn't See Nothin” finds Yohance back in Chicago after a 10-year prison sentence, tracking down key players to examine how this story connects to our present moment.
Host - Yohance Lacour
Producers- Bill Healy, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Erisa Apantaku, Sarah Geis
Sound Design - Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochowski at the Audio Non-Visual Company
Produced for The Invisible institute by ASG Audio