Make a fist and stretch by Dinah Bird September 2005 0’38 Keep it up, you ossified slaves of the keyboard! Every morning, make a fist, then stretch your fingers. Make a fist, and stretch… Your turn now. A BBC archive rescued by Dinah.

Strike! by Chris Watson July 2006 1’20 In the shadow of the rain, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Penetrating dampness all around, at Mount Katadyn, Maine, USA. Or is it bowling on the Olympus?

Le théorème du Plan by Raymond Clamart September 2006 2’17 mixed by Irvic D’Olivier In the French-speaking part of Belgium, the radio-making sector is ‘slightly’ unwell. It seems that the long awaited ‘frequency plan’, which should have ensured a fair distribution of airwave frequencies among radios, will never see the light. Everything has come to a standstill… as if cursed. Everything has been tried, though. What the heck is going on exactly?

Compost by Guillaume Beauron September 2006 6’02 Old sound bites like memories, a super 8 film with washed-out colors, impressions, superimpositions, decantation, strange and foreign voices, silt, compost. Compost, decomposition, recomposition. At the surface of the swamp, life is thriving.

Suite sonore en 3 mouvements composed by Nicolas Frize June 2006 7’31 sound by Christina Clar produced by Fabienne Dupuy 2nd movement Let’s imagine what our hearing does, moment by moment. Like a butterfly flying about its attention shifts toward anything that’s around, following its mood and needs, dissolves and settles down again, flees once more, constantly interpreting. The Sonic Suite is a musical fiction with educational properties: It plays at listening to our sonic environment like it’s a symphony.

Le cirque de Palavas von Christophe Rault June 2006 6’48 A vision of a bull, released at the sound of a gunshot, running through town along a route delimited by fences, surrounded by a dozen horsemen. There’s no possible surprise, as the only thing the bull can do is run forward, scared, until it’s driven back into a truck. A sanitized circus that makes the children of Palavas-les Flots, near La Grande Motte, in southeastern France, shed tears. How can we make the world a more beautiful place?

Burger by Ergo Phizmiz September 2006 9’34 You’re listening to the greasy sound of a prefab burger made with Mickey Mouse meat, served with fries and a little plastic flag – a little red flag or a ‘Che’ T-shirt as a revolutionary present. Here’s the apocalyptic vision of Ergo, the catapult man, gone tripping at the amusement park.

Les loups by Henri Morelle 3’32 All it takes to hear this moving concert is to wander around the Chabrières forest, near the wildlife preserve. That night, the pack was slightly left of the microphone Henri had set up, waiting for the event.

 

 

Interview with SilenceRadio

Kunstradio: How is SilenceRadio structured?
SilenceRadio.org: SilenceRadio.org is Atelier de Création Sonore Radiophonique's web project (ACSR means Studio for radio sound creation). SilenceRadio is an autonomous and experimental space for creating and broadcasting radio art.
As administrator of the ACSR, Irvic D'Olivier founded SilenceRadio in 2005, and Etienne Noiseau soon joined him. This duo are the core conductors of this radio art project. Today, Irvic works on SilenceRadio from Brussels, Etienne from Marseille.

Kunstradio: Do you get funding, and from whom?
SilenceRadio.org: In April 2005, the test version of the project was finished and the website was ready to be launched. This launching was financially sustained by the Brussels town council cultural fond. Then, for a year, the project was carried out without financial support, without budget. From April 2006 until now, the ACSR has invested its own capital in the project, and the Brussels town council cultural fond has decided to renew its financial support.
As for today, the low budget allows to cover the website's editing and maintenance costs and the artistic contribution's expenses. Irvic is in charge of the artistic management and the technical aspects, Etienne writes the presentation texts.

Kunstradio: Who are the people behind SilenceRadio? Are you radio artists, designers... ?
SilenceRadio.org: Irvic D’Olivier and Etienne Noiseau's crew counts Jacques Foschia, Sebastien Dicenaire, Anthony Carcone and Christophe Rault. They carefully look after the quality of the project, and are cautious about its firmness; they are also regular contributors.
However, the crew is aware of the fact that the regularity of its contributions could compromise the project's vocation to release an always more innovative range of creative forms.
This imperative in mind, all of the crew members keep an eye on what is happening in their environment and try to make SilenceRadio benefit from the opportunities which are offered to them in the form of white charts, various information networks and exchanges, and due to their own potenials.

Kunstradio: How do you curate/select/collect the artists/pieces for SilenceRadio?
SilenceRadio.org: Every season, ten new pastilles are published on the website. Each pastille has its own story, its own course, made of meetings and accidents.
The seasonal choice looks for balance in the plurality presented by the pastilles, and for coherence between moods, lengths of times, rhythms and sound writing engaged in the pastilles.
These pastilles mix different genres, diverse forms, and show a variety in the production as in the sound's qualities. There's a great variety of documentaries, sound poetry, fictions, collages and other short forms which all testify radio art’s vitality.

One thing is for sure, the uncertainty of the pastille’s forms and contents makes SilenceRadio's strength and fragility: to manage that kind of experience, which purpose is still vague, gives birth to surprises and un-heard results. Like radio art, SilenceRadio reconsiders the power of radio by challenging our way of thinking. This desire leads to experimentations with the medium with all who work with artistic practices and are willing to share these on the sound spectrum.
Engaged in this process, the artist is not alone, but accompanied: from test to slip, from listening to providing feedback, the exchanges between contributors are always vivid and dynamic with the will to question our sense of hearing, and to delight our imaginary.

Kunstradio: What are your future plans?
SilenceRadio.org: In the near future, SilenceRadio is planning to launch new contributions online, on the event of the winter’s solstice on the 21st of December, 2006. At that point, SilenceRadio will be approaching a total of 100 pastilles, and we want to celebrate this step with an invitation to remix past and present pastilles. Some ideas have already been proposed, some artists have already taken part in this game. Rendezvous in two weeks!
Ten seasons ago, the project was launched, and our contributors are open to the future, which at present is still an indefinite one.
In autumn 2007, ACSR will organise a festival and will need all the association's resources; for this, we dare a temporary stand-by mode with regards to SilenceRadio’s activities.
Will the sound waves of that festival benefit to the continuity of SilenceRadio? Stay tuned!

Releated Link:
Silence Radio