The Pteropoetics of Birdstrike
(2020)
author(s): Jacob Smith
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
“The Pteropoetics of Birdstrike” is a work of multimedia scholarship consisting of a curatorial essay and a twenty-five minute audio piece. Working at the intersection of Sound Studies, Environmental Humanities, and Mobility Studies, the project examines the phenomenon of birdstrike: when birds collide with aircraft. The physical and radiophonic spaces of the airport create a contact zone of human and avian aeromobilities, with birdstrikes as vivid dramas of that shared space. I consider the implications of birdstrike through a critical essay that curates an audio composition that works through the selection and juxtaposition of found sound material. That material consists of recordings of air traffic control conversions during birdstrike incidents, recorded interviews with a pioneer in the field of forensic ornithology, and several poetry recitations. The recitations include the iconic “aerial image” of a skylark’s flight-song, paired with recordings of the actual bird. The result of the whole is to redirect a tradition of aerial imagination towards a new “pteropoetics” that understands the sky as a habitat shared with others.
Not at Home: The Uncanny Experiences of Radio Home Run
(2018)
author(s): Heather Contant
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
In this paper, I attempt to better understand the Japanese media artist Tetsuo Kogawa’s concept of radioart by examining the relationship of this concept to movement. To do this, I focus on the Japanese term ika, which can be used to describe the uncanny feeling that results from aesthetic strategies, such as Viktor Shklovsky’s artistic techniques of defamiliarization or Bertolt Brecht’s alienating tactics of Verfremdungseffekt (V-Effekt). Discussions of ika not only circulated through and around the intellectual and artistic communities that Kogawa participated in during the 1970s and 1980s, they also influenced the practices of the very low-powered FM radio stations, Radio Polybucket and Radio Home Run, established by Kogawa’s students in the early 1980s. By discussing the emphasis of ika and physical movement in Radio Polybucket’s and Radio Home Run’s practices, I begin to trace a central element in Kogawa’s concept of radioart, which I call a kinetic interaction with the material conditions of radio. Through this kinetic interaction, Kogawa makes the material aspects of radio phenomena—its technology, its electromagnetic waves, and its sonic content—perceptible in a new way and thereby reveals previously hidden possibilities.
Mäanderungen
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Hanns Holger Rutz, Nayari Castillo-Rutz, Miriam Raggam, Reni Hofmüller
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Acoustical surveys of the city. An experimental radio piece.
The spatial design of a city seems to dictate who moves around in it and how. Mäanderungen (“meanderings”) is an acoustic suggestion for developing alternative forms—in real, physical space; in electronic, radiophonic space; and in the imagination. Meanders are created by friction, by the sensing of irregularities, between depth and surface, in motion. The exploratory process developed by the temporary production collective corresponds to a form of walking, being and moving in the city that arises in the here and now, free from purpose, and that is individual, subjective, and inquiring. Peculiar views of the urban space are made possible—unusual, temporary units of measurement introduced. Part of the material created is based upon an interpretation of different spatial realities such as facades or gaps. They are photographed, drawn, captured by sensors or pressure and combined with text fragments to create a composition that manifests both as a radio drama and in the form of a spatial installation. The translation process is driven mainly by an algorithmic generator that is constantly allowing new coincidences.
Mäanderungen was the winning project of the lime_lab 3 prize for experimental radio play. lime_lab is a cooperation of Akademie Graz, Forum Stadtpark, Literaturhaus Graz, ORF Steiermark, and steirischer herbst.