Podcast / Casting the Pod

Casting the Pod is the first episode of a podcast. We have participated in a call by Wissenstransfer Ost, hosted by the University for Music and Performance Art Vienna and directed by Julia Grillmayr and Anna Zethner, entitled „Wissenschaft im Ohr“ - on how to do a science podcasts. We have been among 5 selected research teams to participate in the workshop, individual coaching and presentations. Indeed, a fantastic opportunity to share techniques and discuss different conceptual and methodological approaches as well as production insights in podcast making. As we have been somewhat geographically kept distant from our collaborator based in Australia, Monica Gagliano and the pandemic seasoning appeared to work against us, we began with an experimental format of conversations out of which we developed a performative score for Monica. Back then she had moved to a research site out in the bush, without stable reception and cut-off from power once in a while. We decided to write a letter, which we, together with Vicki Kirby drafted and that she received in mid September 2021. We then, some weeks later, received several files, images, videos and sound recordings. Since the initial plan was to start the research project with a visit to Monica’s lab and greenhouses, which was no longer an option at that time, we looked for a greenhouse in Vienna. We found open doors in the greenhouses at Althanstrasse belonging to the Molecular Systems Biology Institute, University of Vienna who were just in the process of moving facilities to the newly built BioCenter in the third district. So we could install ourselves in the gradually emptying greenhouse, only the plants too big to fit through openings and to be transported stayed in the space along with a selection of plants which are no longer of interest to the scientists, have already been observed, participated in tests, scientific leftovers. Together with the ventilation system, the watering system and all kinds of abandoned gardening equipment, we started to tune into this space and its dwellers, listening in between the frequencies of water spraying and dripping, ventilation blinds and noises of temperature and humidity control. These were the climatic zones from where we entered into the conversation with Monica and her vegetal surroundings. We equipped ourselves with different kinds of microphones, larger ones and small, sensitive to different spectra of frequencies and directions of spatially capturing sound. It was one of the first encounters which confronted us with the challenges of scale, human and plant bodies, different timings, physiologies, resolutions.