Radio Art in Waves Author(s): Frances Dyson Reviewed work(s): Source: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 4 (1994), pp.

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ARTI

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Radio

Art

in

Waves
Frances Dyson
AB STRACT

STRATEGIES Whatever form,be it mixingor collage,myradioartworks the are attemptsto sound through (or mean through or touch through) the immense barriersthat have been constructed and construed by layersand layersof noise-noise built of the chatter of contemporary existence and the persistent shriekof radioitself. I havedevelopedtwo mainstrategiesfor doing this.First I have taken existing radio forms, including documentary, dramaand sound composition,and blended them together so that the listeneris presentedwith a varietyof perspectives (personal,seemingly"objective," parodicand fictional) that, when combined forma mosaic,the content of whichis more a style of listening or thinking than actualinformation.For instance,the mainlisteningactivity be one of interpretamay tion and making connections-that is, the listener is expected to synthesizeratherthan analyseor deduce. Secondly, havetriedto createsoundscapes, I sound clusters and sound compositionsthatworksimultaneously at least on two levels.On one level the sound has semanticmeaning:it commentson and supportsthe text. It maybe literal or aS stract,but in either case it is meant to be interpretedas aural content, the equivalent of linguistic content. On another level the sound attemptsto provokein the listenera kind of feeling of abandon, a voluntarysubmissionto the sound itself which then clearsthe wayfor a more reflectiveform of listening an openness that can only be provokedthrough the forgettingor "losing" oneself. of Becominglost or forgettingoneself is an integralpart of the act of listening;the radio mix merelyenhances this otherwisenaturalprocess.Being lost in sound is also being open to different waysof thinking, to making connections one would not normallymakebecauseone has entered a stateof repose:the kind of quietnessor silence thatis createdonlyby an attentivelisteningto sound. Withinthis silence one is, as philosopher MartinHeidegger described in Beingand Time [1], awareof the uncanninessof being, its coincidence and flux, its eternalpermutations and at the sametime, of our essentialinabilityto graspand controlit. Likesound itself, it is verydifficultto saywhatit is thatwe hear and feel when truly engaged in the act of listening.The experienceis a little like dejavu in that it happensand has meaning,but it is a meaning beyond words a meaning that penetrates the body as sound reverberateswithin the body; it is felt rather than thought.In these momentsof listening we become awareof ourselvesas resonatingbeings immersedin the world,unrestrictedby our singularskinsand identities.We movebeyond sound to reacha kind of hearing-touch, inwardresonance an through which we are able to break down the barriersimposed by rational,dogmaticthinking.In thatspace,we come face to face with ourselves.

If this silence and space is continually invaded or blocked by noise then it is impossiblefor us to hear the depths of our beng to near our consclences, our ethics the grinding machinery of our outworn thought-patterns, our prejudices and blind spots. In short this music prevents from hearing what we try to repress what we literally do not want to hear.
. .

The Logzcof Waste

Throughdescriptions three of of her soundpieces-The Logic of Waste(1989), VoicesLost and Calling (1990) and Highways to Virtuality(1991)-the author outlinessome of the theoretical concepts andstrategiesthat underlieherwork,andthe waythey relateto bothher compositional practiseand herchoice of aural material. Through descripthis tion, centralconcernsof her work-such as the impactof technology, Western the worldviewandthe status of soundin Western culture, ecology and militarism-areexemplified, and the importance audioart as an of appropriate medium addressfor ingthese issues is highlighted.

The earlypiece TheLogzc Waste of (1989) [2] is a good example of the conceptualruminationscoursing through my work. The Logzc Waste of questions the constitutionof literal and metaphorical "waste" how wasteis designated,how the concept of wasteoperateswithin consumersociety,how the militaryindustrial complexes of the United States and the USSR control(ed) and profit(ed) by the mostpowerfulmechanisms for "makingwaste":nuclear weapons and how people are perceivedas wastewithina particular culture. The culturaland metaphysical logic or mechanisms waste of are exemplifiedby the notion of "refuse" multiplemeanthe ings of which are used in the piece as a structuraldevice. Refuseis interpretedfirstas denial, as the possibility negaof tion (a/not a) and the oppositional thinkingthatit engenders. It is only within this dualistic structurethat the concept of waste makes sense. Secondly,refuse is interpreted to mean "garbage" thatwhichsocietyabhorsand thereforeshouldbe hidden fromview,or thatwhichis considereddispensable and thereforecan be thrownaway. the former,there is the misIn conceptionthatbeing hidden fromviewis equivalent being to nonexistent; the latter,the dispensability material in of objects in whatis often referredto as "throw-away culture" impliesunlimitednatural resources. Thisrefusalto acknowledge conthe sequences of refuse and making refuse operates within the worldsof both objectsand people. Thirdly, refuse can be interpreted as "re-fusing" the in sense of bringing together dichotomies within a more ecological worldview. This idea is the basisof the sound compositions and mixes in the piece, and constitutesanother nonlinguistic strategy for raising the issue of waste. With the
Frances Dyson (teacher, media artist), Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia. E-mail: <Frances_DysonEmssw.uow.edu.au>. Manuscript solicited byJudy Malloy. Received 1 May 1994.

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mixing of sounds literallycomprisedof the sounds of garbage (garbagetrucks, garbagebeing collected, garbagefalling into large containers, etc.) and the "musemes" Western art music (like of "semes," musemecan be thought of the as the smallest unit that has musical meaning, perhaps only two or three notes), the distinctionbetween the musicaland noisycomponentsof the sound is problematized.This happens as a result of the sonic, ratherthan the semantic, propertiesof the mix-while listening to the mix it is hard to deElnethe sound as either musicor noise, since it is a bit of both. This blurring of sound properties not only raises the question of whatconstitutesmusic and whatconstitutes noise, but at a deeper level questions the cultural process that values organizedsound over unorganized sound, pattern over randomness and structureover chaos. In the aural mix, sound is constituted as undifferentiated-neither music nor noise, art nor garbage and thus refuses the boundaries necessary for oppositional thinking. By acceptingthe garbagesoundsa metaphorfor the noise in hearingand in life the listener approachesa space in the piece that is also a space for rethinkingacceptedstructures thought of via a differentform of listening. Aurally TheLogic Waste a complex of is mlx ot tragmentsot muslc,envlronmental sound noises such as metal being crushedand paperbeing crumpled,and voices in both narratedtext and documentary forms. The musical elements consist of no more than two or three notes that,as in the Westernmusicaltradition often indicate musical opening or closure. These elements are mixed with noises that have similar acoustic characteristics. varioustimes one can At hear a vocal chorus in the background mixed with environmentalsounds such as footsteps walking on leaves or cars passlngon a treeway.
. , , , . . . r

Aurally,the piece combines spoken text, fragmentsfrom interviews(including an interview with a medium from the TheosophicalSociety,which,for unknown reasons, was riddled with static interference), ambient sound and music-all of which is interrupted and structured by telephonic chattering. With a "bed" of drones made up of chants, animal sounds and overtone choral works, the mixes draw the listener into a space that is almost soporific, yet the meditativestate associated with much of the sound is puncturedby the sharpcrackles, beeps and ringingassociatedwith the telephone and by the imminent interruption the telephone representsto manypeople. As the phone calls interruptthe flows of sound, electrifying the spoken text, the disembodied voice entersthe sphere of masscommunications, whereits "calling"has the additionalmeaning of "vocation"or "duty," wherethe listener and in hearing or responding to that call, must embrace a critical yet wholly absorbed mode of listening. The space of listening that is opened is thus a space that can be heard only within a social, politicalor culturalcontext.Yetit is also a space that threatensthose institutions by problematizingthe actual and metaphoric transmission the voice and by of continuallyaskingthe question:"Who is it that is calling, and for whom is the call?"

Highways to Virhzality
Virtuality the productof an increasing is dissociation fromimmediateexperience that now promises to override our understandings whatis and is not reality. of The rhetoric of virtualityhas much in common with the utopian promises of early radio, notions of the electronic ether, contemporarydesires to escape the rigiditiesof Westernthoughtand futuristicdreamsof total disembodiment within a techno-sublime. However, virtuality'spublic "debut"during the PersianGulfWar to one of the largest audiences in television history providesthe most ominouswarningsignsof what it means to be "virtual" postin modern culture.The hyper-present images of the "smart bombs" were the material with which television portrayed virtuality,substituting high-tech weaponry for the woundedbodies it wasprohibited from showing.The conspicuous absence of corporealitywithin this virtual field was a source of great concern for television, and it is not surprising that the cries of anguish, sounds of ex-

Votces Lost and Calling

Voices and Calling Lost (1990) [3] is structured around the concepts of calls and calling, such as the call of the conscience the spiritual calling and the telephone call. It poses the question of who calls,what the statusof their call is within Western culture and what it meansto answerthatcall. In doing so, it focuseson the statusof the disembodied voice as it travelsthe symboliccircuitsof spiritualism, the psyche and the telephone and is transmittedvia spiritual and electronicmeans.

plosions and general "ambience" war of that were present in the soundtrackaccompanying the reports assumed the role of presentingthat which could not be presentedthroughvisiblemeans. Highwaysto Virtuality( 1991) [4] is composed of these sounds of war in order to emphasizethe violenceassociated with virtuality: not just the pervasive militarism that assuresus there can be a warwithout bodies or the realm of virtual reality,where bodies disappearin an onslaughtof data,but a more extensive violence-one underpinning global, ecological ruination and deep psychic malaise. In addition to using spoken narrative, television excerpts, found sound/speech and interviews with media theorists(AllucquereStone, Margaret Morseand DouglasKahn) [5], I composed a varietyof sound clusters and mixes during the months of the Gulf Warusing digital technology. Surrounded by the war beyond the sound studio and the technology within it, I developed a compositionalprocess out of the dread I felt in producing the piece the dread of living in the electronic fortress of a postmodern, hightech virtual culture where, with each new invention a portion of the body, corporeality here-and-now and presence seems to be whittledaway. This dread is expressed by the violence scission and dismemberment inscribed within and implied between the sounds themselves and producedby a processof "de-generating"sound throughmultipletransmissions via differentmedia technologies. While the role of sound in media has traditionally been to recuperate, simuby lation, the "presence"that media and masscommunications (and, in a general sense, modern technologyitselfl has destroyed the sound in Highways highly is fragmentedand refragmented,sharply cutting between elements of music, found and synthesized sound and snatches of war coverage.In particular, the eerie sound of video transmission that accompanied images of the smart bomb'simpact and thatwasrepeatedas a kind of televisual"logo" the warfor becamean auralmotif for the piece. Despite its low fidelity,this sound wasidentiElably technological although,unlike a video-gameimage, its muffled and distortedvoicesconjuredmemoriesof early ham-radio transmissions rather than high-techmanoeuvres. However, relative to the meaningof the transmitted voice, the sound was also profoundlydisturbing, and it is this aspect that the overall tone of Highways attemptsto evoke.The

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Radio Art in Waves

speech was barelydiscernable,and the timbre of the voices was obviously mauled by electronic transmission, riddledwiththe high-pitched screamof a low-fidelity, stratospheric militarysignal. In fact,the "presence" thesevoiceswas of obliterated a waythatrevealedthe terin ror of technics:the humanvoice, so precious to notions of individualauthenticity,wasmutilated the overriding of by will the technology,screamingnot from the pain of warbut from the evisceration of electronictransfer. These shriekscommunicatedthe fear and aggressionof techno-war, piercing the smooth surface of virtual presence that the rhetoric of the war had been tirelesslyconstructing.In Highways, the intention was to abandonthe projectof restoring "presence"through aurality and instead to jar and pierce the listener, to provokethe apprehensiveand beleaguered state of living in virtuality throughthe use of sound.Whilethe text provides a critique of virtuality, the sound evokes the high-pitchedscream, the "call" the virtual of world,beckoning to a sociality alreadyprimed by television, planetary breakdown and the threatof nuclearannihilation.

become moreinterestedin working with installation,in which I feel soundis spatialityand full acoustic dimensions can be quite effective and through which I have the opportunity of collaborating with artistsusing other media. References and Notes
1. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time(New York,NY: Harper & Row, 1962). 2. The Logzcof Waste,30 min, 1989. Commissioned by The Listening Room, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC); broadcast on ABC Radio, September 1989; New American Radio, March 1990; and CFW-FM, Toronto, 1990. 3. VoicesIJostand Calling, 26 min, 1990. Commissioned by Writers in Recital and The Listening Room, Australian Broadcasting Corporation; performed at the Eighth Biennale of Sydney and broadcast on ABC Radio, April 1990; New American Radio, August 1990; and CFW-FM Canada, 1990. 4. Hzghways to Virtuality, 60 min, 1991. Commissioned by The Listening Room, Australian Broadcasting Corporation; broadcast on ABC Radio, May 1991; KPFA San Francisco, September 1991; and community stations in Canada during 1991. Later adapted as the sound component of Telesthesia, an audio installation produced in collaboration with Douglas Kahn, exhibited at the Walter McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute,June/July 1991. 5. From personal interviews, sections of which can be found in the artist's booklet that accompanied the Telesthesia installation at the Walter McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, 1991.

(Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1989). Derrida, Jacques, Marginsof Philosophy (Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1982). Derrida,Jacques, Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1974). Derrida, Jacques, Cinders (Lincoln, NE: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1987) . Heidegger, Martin, The QuestionConcerningTechnology (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1977). Heidegger, Martin, Early Greek Thinking (New York, NY:Harper & Row, 1975). Heidegger, Martin, Poetry,Language, Thought (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1975). Heidegger, Martin, What Is Called Thinking (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1968). Ihde, Don, Consequences Phenomenology of (New York, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 1986) . Ihde, Don, Existential Technics (Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 1983) . Ihde, Don, Listening and Voice:A Phenomenology of Sound (Athens, OH: Ohio Univ. Press, 1976). Kahn, Douglas, "Vibration, Inscription, Mostly Transmission," WEST, Univ. of Western Sydney (December 1992). Kahn, Douglas, "Acoustic Sculpture: Deboned Voices," NMA 8 (1990). Kahn, Douglas, "Track Organology," October55
(19go),

Kittler, Friedrich, DiscourseNetworks(Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ Press, 1990). Kittler, Friedrich, "Grammophone, Film, Typewriter," October41(1987). Levin, Tom, The Acoustic Dimension," Screen25, No. 3 (1984). Marvin, Carolyn, When Old TechnologiesWereNew (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988). Metz, Christian, "AuralObjects," YaleFrerzch Studies, No. 60 (1980). Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, The Visibleand theInvisible, Claude Lefort, ed. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1968).

Bibliography

CONCLUSION
Many of the themes expressed above continue to permeatemywork.Mymost recent piece, Window Paan( 1993), explores the sense of disembodimentassociated with high-tech medical intervention and, throughit, I havebeen able to rethinkpreviousideasaboutthe link betweenthe bodyand its variousprotheses and modesof representation. Since Window Paan producedusing a systemof was three-dimensional (3D) spatialization, I have also begun to explore the possibilities and ramiElcations 3D sound, or of "virtual audio,"as it is known.I havealso

Bailble, Claude, "Programming the Ear," Cahiersdu Cinema,No. 297 (February 1979). Cage, John, Silence (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1961). Cage, John, A YearfromMonday (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1967). Charles, Daniel, and Cage,John, For theBirds (London: Marion Boyars, 1981).

Berger, Rene, and Eby, Lloyd, eds., Art and TechnoXRonell, Avital, The TelephoneBook (Lincoln, NE: ogy (New York, NY: Paragon House, 1986) . Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1989). Crissell, Andrew, UnderstandingRsdio (New York, Wheelwright, Philip, Heraclitus(New York, NY:AthNY: Methuen, 1986). eneum, 1964). Dahlhaus, Carl, TheIdea of AbsoluteMusic (Chicago, Woodward, Kathleen, ed., The Myths of Information IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1989). (WI: Coda Press, 1980). Dahlhaus, Carl, Between Romanticismand Modernism

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