title:   Still space, dead air
medium:   audio recordings for radio broadcast
date:   2001
presentation:  ÖRF Kunstradio, December 2001, as part of series "FREQUENCitY," curated by Steve Bates
 

The ritual moment of silence as a form of public grieving is conventionally used to represent collective trauma so profound as to be beyond words. For those reporting on such moments, perhaps the most profound gesture one can make is to permit this silence to play, as "dead air." Still, these silences are never complete; they are rife with the rustling and fidgeting and breathing which betray a crowd's bodily efforts to be consciously quiet. Thus although it may seem a fundamental sacrifice for radio to broadcast silence (because it seems to involve giving up the medium's currency -- sound), these moments of quiet are actually filled with as much information as any other broadcast moment, requiring an equal effort of listening and concentration on the part of their audience.

There are other sorts of silence, ones which tend to go unreported. For example, there is the quiet that pervades seemingly "dead" spaces -- forgotten sites or places whose moments have passed. For the project "Still space, dead air" I have made a series of ambient field recordings in quiet spots of various cities. Adhering to a standard pop-song length of three minutes (that is, acknowledging the limits of concentration assumed by popular culture), these recordings are to be played as a series of radio segments. Each recording includes a brief vocal introduction describing the site and some of its better- and lesser-known histories. Though presently quiet, each of these urban sites is in transition or on the cusp of change, and their histories are thus at stake, so their provisional status might reveal as much about the current priorities of the communities in which they are located as do official histories and plans. There is a stark difference between the linguistic information condensed into the vocal introductions, and the muted but rich aural information contained in the audio samples. In these clips, as in deliberate public silences, the weight of the past is perhaps located in the uneasy quiet between verbal description and felt experience.

CREDITS

Produced for broadcast on OFR Kunstradio, as part of "FREQUENCitY," a series of radio programs curated by Steve Bates. Thanks to Elisabeth Zimmerman at ÖRF Kunstradio, Bruce Haines, and everyone who shared stories about their cities. Post-production: Chandra Bulucon (Toronto segments) and Sabine Heyna, ÖRF (London and Vienna segments).

FIRST SERIES

British Telecom Tower, London (4:14)
1 1:10  introduction
2  3:04  recording

Sofiensäle, Vienna (4:09)
3  1:04  introduction
4  3:05  recording

Garrison Creek, Toronto (4:15)
5  1:14  introduction
6  3:01  recording

IMAX Cinema, London (4:05)
7  0:58  introduction
8  3:07  recording

Flak Tower, Vienna (4:09)
9  1:10  introduction
10  2:59  recording

Allan Gardens, Toronto (4:21)
11  1:17  introduction
12  3:04  recording