George Mason with radio set, 1913, Fredonia NY
I seem to be traveling down some crazy detour in my pursuit to produce radio or video that is entertaining to anyone but myself. I find myself studying radio that no one listens to — at least no one I know.
I keep tuning in lo-fi, crackling collages from the likes of Anna Friz and other sound artists, who tell a story by piecing together the gasps and sighs and hesitations between the words. On Saturday I got mesmerized by “Radiophonic Creation Day” — surrealist radio emanating from somewhere in Europe. It becomes a strange place to visit in your head. I think of my dad (who was an airforce radio guy in WWII) — I think of him with playing with old radio dials in the dark, trying to tune into some faraway place — crackling fuzz, flanging yowls, muffled voices. We got him a shortwave radio once, but he was disappointed that the tuning had gone digital — he missed those ghosts in the infinite fine-tuning space.
I’m also reading a book called Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism
Amid this, I’m attempting an “artistic” revision of a radio piece I did last year on “Karma.” It’s forcing me way past my comfort zone, both in skills and in thinking about voices floating through space.
