Tara Downs talks about her sound experiments for the Radio Droogdok residency at SVA and gives a visual and audio tour of the radios in the John St Gallery and the Radio Hut.
The film was made at the end of the residency in November 2020 by Jo Leahy.
Test Transmission From The Edge Of The World is an experimental sound, storytelling and spoken word work-in-progress. The story of a boy who becomes ‘possessed’ by radio, transmitting from his ramshackle hut high on the shingle of an intertidal marshland through the metal parts in his body left behind after an operation. A warm and touching story of imagination, the power of radio, and a love affair conducted partly in morse code.
This recording is a collage in sound and film of the back story and residency experiments with parts of the show being narrated and recorded in binaural and through the radios. This was originally live-streamed for Knaïve Theatre presents: A Digital Lyceum in November 2020.
https://www.digital-lyceum.com
More Events
Miniature Museum inventors Tara Downs and Bart Sabel present new experiments from audio offshoot project Radio Droogdok in collaboration with Jonny Fluffypunk, Euan Maco McAleece & Knaïve Theatre presents: A Digital Lyceum.
“We’re just back from Radio Heaven with a trailer load of gorgeous radios and half-soldered transmitting switchboards. Intrigued by the alien sounds from between radio stations, the romanticism of far-away names on the dial, and the manifestations from the fifth element, Aether. Radio art play with found sounds and outdated technology.”
This work-in-progress R&D residency will include further experiments in collaboration with Jonny Fluffypunk and Maco, playing with audiences (when allowed), sonic developments of the ‘Test Transmission’ show and live medium-wave radio mixing. Mashing up reverb, theatre and radio; combining revived vestiges of lo-fi history with digital futures and in-the-moment interventions.
With experiments broadcast through Resound Radio, and culminating in 2 binaural live streams hosted virtually by Knaïve Theatre presents: A Digital Lyceum, who's inaugural season of innovative digital works runs from 22nd October - 12th December.
The Gallery will be open to visitors on Friday & Saturday 10am - 3pm
The Digital Lyceum events and after talks on 27th & 28th Nov.
(Please check websites for details and to book: www.digital-lyceum.com)
Biography
Tara Downs combines art, anthropology and museology in installations created with partner Bart Sabel, as Miniature Museum.
Radio Droogdok is her sonic off shoot that launched in April 2018, thanks to Arts Council England funding, on resoundradio.org.uk for SVA SITE Festival. She collected and sculpted stories into a series of ‘Transition Transmissions’ – broadcasts from Dutch docklands to post-industrial Stroud from a Miniature Museum-Radio Droogdok mobile radio hut.
This radiophonic hut has travelled between The Netherlands & UK, appearing at Dutch artist collectives & squatted shipyard community, Jazz Stroud, The Museum In The Park, Stroud Theatre Festival, and rolls on with new experiments and collaborations as Miniature Museum installation, micro recording and transmitting studio and theatre show.
LINKS
www.radiodroogdok.org
www.miniaturemuseum.org.uk
http://jonnyfluffypunk.co.uk/news/
www.digital-lyceum.com
& SPECIAL THANKS TO
Arts Council England for project funding this R&D & Bas Bossinade - the godfather of electronics at Bossinade Lightworks - for opening up Radio Heaven to us.
