Onassis Radiophonics - Episode 2

Episode 2

Can news become the prime matter of a radio play? This question is answered by the play "NEWS", which comprises the “re-editing” of the most important news of the weekly agenda. As we are found immersed into a mishmash of news (as well as fake news) on a daily basis, how much do we really absorb? How easy is it to direct our attention? Words are packed and smashed, and they leave with a bang. This trajectory of information is captured by the mechanism of the play "NEWS".

Dramaturg: Nikolas Hanakoulas
Text processing, sound design: Gavriil Kamaris
Puredata coding: Fotios Kontomichos
Production Management: Delta Pi
Produced by Onassis Stegi

The second radio show is about the 21st week of 2020, starting on May 18, and ending on Sunday, May 24, 2020.
Presented by: Vassilis Magouliotis
Contains excerpts from the Greek translation of Luis Buñuel's memoir "Mi ultimo suspiro" ("My Last Sigh"). Greek title: "I teleftea pnoi" (transl. by Maria Balaska, Odysseas publishing, 2nd ed. 2006).

We would like to warmly thank Thanassis Valtinos, Alexandra Boussiou, Eleni Gioti, and Constanza Maniatopoulou for their support.

Radiophonics Part 2

“Radio Traces” is the recording of a process regarding and centered around radio. Early on this project, we considered the radio’s future, and the concepts of ‘broadcasting’ and ‘narrowcasting’ in a time such as the current one, when everyone has the chance to ‘broadcast’ to a global audience, through social media. For this project, several tweets about radio were sonified. The bulk of digital information which was mapped and sonified in various ways provides the backbone of the work. Technology and new media, the multiple simultaneous stimuli, the linear time, and the internal, subjective time, as well as everyone’s personal memories, they all have a place in this project, which does not focus on yesterday, neither does it long for it, but rather contains it in a work-in-progress flow. Great broadcasts, radio shows, and legendary themes from radio’s history triggered sensations, and were mixed with electronic sounds, original music material, compositions, recitations by the actress, and the constant flow of the social media messages sonification.

In “Radio Traces,” we dealt mainly with the radio’s being at the present time and, since the question regarding the radio’s future is yet to be answered, we proceeded towards an artwork, a group live performance. Listeners are advised to use headphones in order to better conceive the sound’s diffusion through the various and scattered around speakers at the live performance space.

Spiza artistic society: Sofia Kamayianni, Theodora Panagopoulou, Tim Ward
Recitation – Singing: Theodosia Savaki

Project Curators: Christos Carras & Theodoros Chiotis

The project was built upon a ‘sonification’ process, in which the sound provides a fresh and interesting way for the perception of a digital information flow. The information is translated to sounds, whereas various of its elements are mapped to parameters controlling the sound’s creation and modulation.

In “Radio Traces,” all information comes from Twitter, which was chosen because of the very interesting parallels that emerge when it is seen either in relation, or in contrast, to conventional radio broadcasts/shows. The tweets, that lie at the heart of the Twitter service, are a kind of personal broadcasting. Peculiar in their very nature, they are deeply personal, and unique on the one hand, and widely distributed, retweeted, and well-known, on the other; this may well constitute a social networking radio.

The key concept led to very interesting sonic representations and patterns, distinct throughout the work. But it soon became clear that mixing them with original radio material from archives around the world would create a much more rich and exciting sonic texture, providing also a means to an end for this research and memory path. To these, we added original recordings from existing tweets and other texts, as well as short musical patterns, composed especially for this project.

“Radio Traces” was recorded live and is based on a combination between pre-designed structure and improvisation. The sound diffusion in space was processed real-time to a network of speakers and small radio receivers, which surrounded the performers, and filled the space. It was recorded in high definition stereo, as if recorded live in a radio booth.