Raudio #06

october 12, 2005.

Playing now the first in a new series of PARK4DTV's Raudio web streams ... As part of the core of this latest Raudio stream, you hear:
..Out takes from the recordings we made of this summer's Inside/Outside Paradiso placard, with performances by FukNRol, Vacca and Hoelzl, and 0 OK, 0:1.
..Five extracts from Bastilles Ensevelies by FlexRex (Eric Houzet), electro-acoustic variations on the soundscape of the parisian place de la Bastille.
..The fine Dunstanburgh Castle piece, by Daniel Patrick Quinn, appears courtesy of the scottish Suilven Recordings label.
..Five tracks by Friendly Rich, from Brampton, Ontario (Canada). (The selected tracks, including the short 'e-story' Magnified Lyle, all have a definite zappaesque feel to them. I guess that's partly due to me choosing. Richard's work is highly 'eclectic', and the CD's he sent me some time ago actually do show a great diversity in styles ...)
..Synchronize, by Frans van Lent (the Netherlands). The work is part of the 2005 edition of the Web Biennal, and "to be used with headphones on portable audio" ... I guess you'll 'see' why when you hear it come streaming along. (Frans's contribution was the reason that I also added Pastorale to this Raudio edition, from the first volume of my Sound Chronicles. The two tracks do form an interesting pair, I think; matching as much as they contrast ...)
..I picked some of the atmospheric and ambient pieces among Eric Saliege's (France) Sleeping tracks.
..Five new 'plunderphonicy sound bites' by Ate M. Hes from Utrecht, the Netherlands (see picture).
..ciao jazzclub is a project of 'roaming dutchman' Rinus van Alebeek, this particular project being a cooperation with Tibor Macek. Among the many noteworthy events Rinus has been involved in lately, I particularly like the illegal concert in Ragusa, "a very beautiful baroque town in the south of Sicily". Tourists visiting Ragusa "often find it difficult to find the way, since the old town is full of narrow winding streets," the trio explained on their Urban Scoring Kit (Kit per la Sonorizzazione Urbana) web page [ no longer available online ]. So one august morning this summer, Rinus, Antonio Mainenti and Dario Sanfilippo (aka Tirriddiliu - you may have heard some of his work as part of Raudio #01) decided to 'help them out' ...: "We put up some signs, in the wrong direction of course, leading pass the courtyard where we held our illegal concert ... " ...
..Three tracks by redTHumbs, from Tisanesound's online catalogue of some eleven CD's worth of thoughtfully crafted sound works (Mark Webster - an englishman living in Paris - and friends) ...
..Among the sounds/tracks that I contributed myself there is the short "Nature_s" series, composed just before the summer mainly from sounds/recordings provided for that purpose by students from Jay Needham's (last year's) class at the R&T department of the Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
..Most recent among the tracks now playing at Raudio's are parts of takes from rehearsals by Cosmodrone, an impromptu eclectronica ensemble, made up of Emmanuel Ferrand, Eric Houzet, Cyrill Hoffmeyer and myself, by now all set to perform over the weekend of october 14th (twice; first on friday evening during the soirée moûles-frites, then once again on saturday), in Châlons-en-Champagne, at the 1st European UFO Congress ... ("Careful with that link, Eugene!" ... "aaargggrhaahhhhh ...!" ... though I'm sure that it does not hide anything vicious, on my Tibook it is something of a browser crasher at times :-) ...

What, together with the conference's over-the-top web site, really convinced me that I should come along on this curious trip into the wondrous worlds of 'weird science' was the Bontempi HF201 electronic organ that I found, just a couple of weeks ago on the pavement near my local supermarket. Now that was a sign if ever I got one! The idea of playing the Bontempi and my Korg MS20 in the very midst of some of the world's greatest connaisseurs of flying saucers and ET's, contemplating the truths of all that's out there and among us while feasting upon plates filled with french fries and mussels ... would you have been able to resist? ... And no, none of us has the slightest idea of what to expect there in the Parc des Expositions of the town of Châlons.

But then, of course, that is part of the fun ...

[ link: Wikipedia on Ufology ]

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[ Modified: june 16, 2008 ]

tags: raudio, paradiso, placard

# .174.

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radiophonies

october 12, 2005.

A couple of weeks ago, on sunday september 25th, C. and I briefly attended the 4ème Festival de théâtre radiophonique francophone (festival of 'francophonic radio fiction'), that was being held (on september 23, 24 and 25) in the Maison du Geste et de l'Image in the rue Saint-Denis, Paris Ie. Somewhat curious indeed, to find such a 'sound only' event taking place in an institution that - when taken literally - was named so very 'visually' ... home of gesture and image ... :-) ... But on the other hand - taken only slightly less in a literal way ... could anything be more full of both gesture and image than some of the best musics and well conceived sounds?
And the mgi does provide a wonderful space right in the center of Paris ...

The festival's 'infrastructrure' proved to be impressive enough. Visitors could choose between three ways to listen to the 'audio projections' of the radio plays. We tried all three of them.

Started listening in a 'dusky lounge' space, where we heard a 'fantasy play' with the intriguing title Reconstruction phonétique d'une vérité historique ou les couleurs perdues d'un ptérodactyle, by Vincent Ravalec and Jean-Matthieu Zahnd. Not a bad place to sit and listen, except for the fact that the settees placed along the wall were pretty uncomfortable, allowing one neither to properly sit, nor properly lie back in. Which made the fifty minutes passed in/on them seem on the longish side.

We then heard Babe Touré's Où est ton frère ?, in the far bigger 'theatre', where we sat in rows, like in the movies, watching the two big loudspeakers up front ... Well, it's an old story, of course, but there is no way getting used to sitting with a bunch of others in a theatre and only listen without having something/anything, however vaguely related (images, musicians, actors, dancers ...), to look at. Be it, like here, a radio play; or an 'acousmatic music' concert ... Has been observed again, and again, of course. Lots been written about this, much within the context of 'tape music' concerts. Often also the audience has been blamed. For being spoiled, or not willing to make an effort. Yeah, they should just sit still, close their eyes and 'deep listen' ... Well, I have tried. Often. And I dare say that I am a very experienced listener. Willing to make the effort, and appreciating - often very much so - the sound works and musics that I thus heard. But I continue to feel that there's something not quite right about it.

I am sure by now that this experience of 'discomfort' is not merely a matter of 'not being used to', of being confronted with a novelty (well, one hardly can name it a 'novelty' any longer ...); something that in time might be 'overcome' ... No, I think that the reason why 'crowds' never, never will rush to their neighborhood 'audio cinema', in order to, all together now, enjoy the latest 'movies for their ears' - no matter how good and/or entertaining they are - is that there is something profoundly 'private' and 'introvert' about listening only. As opposed to the 'extravert, communal quality', the opening up of a 'public space' that 'looking' provides ...

And indeed, the third 'way to listen' at the Radiophonies festival proved to be the best one ... We listened to Petits Gouffres, by Claudine Berthet and Patrick de Rham, through the wireless headphone sets that one could pick up, while sitting and/or walking around the mgi's entrance hall. Headphones. These do give you precisely that 'closing off' of the surroundings, give you the 'privacy' that 'listening only' asks for ... It seems pretty evident, really.

tags: radio art, paris

# .173.

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