MORE COW BELL! Or maybe goats... Our first broadcast show consists of a work by Cathryn Morgan Richards looped EXTENSIVELY. i took my kid and radio to the community orchard at the back of our estate and scrumped apples for a crumble whilst listening- very Alpine it felt too :-) Next week's Sunday is still in planning. We have had many interested and interesting responses, and if work is forth coming (good artists are always so busy) the shows will be fascinating...
I have been considering the definition of 'community' I wish to use for my CEP.
community commune comrade communicate communal
We can conceptually align hearing (like watching) with detached registration of external phenomena. But listening (like seeing) implies a dialogic approach to what ever data's are being processed. Theodor Adorno wrote in 'Minima Moralia:Reflections on a Damaged life'1974, on the danger posed by mechanically reproduced music/media to community in capitalist cultures- that media were offering a 'we-ness' and 'accompanied solitude' that substituted it's own representational space (pre-defined, safe, reliable, scripted, contained) for the real world of direct experience. I am interested in listening cultures that respond to this by forming their own dialogic communities, through radio or other sonic practices, as 'cultures of resistance' (according to bell hooks). Joseph Beuys said "Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system [-]". Definitions are widened when ever dialogue is 'entered into', and process and ambiguity cherished. SO much important work happens through this engagement :-)
so community: ARTS community, radio community, geographical community, minority community, rural community, political sexual shopping hobbyist criminal community.
I have been surveying my immediate locality (soundart radios' home town, Totnes, in Devon) asking individuals to share their ideas of 'community' (yes, asking my community to define community! CLEVER!) generating audio recordings for a radio piece later in the autumn. As well as conceptual definitions, I have been asking people to share their alliances, and asking where people invest their time/resources. Taking as many examples (students, healers, policemen, coffee shop drifters, shop and market workers, street sweepers and sleepers, children and OAP's, dog walkers, football players, solicitors, teachers, cafe staff, artists, young mothers, travellers, torists etc etc etc) as possible will allow me to generate a sound picture of Totnes on which to build a more concrete definition.
A contextual enquiry for BA Writing at Dartington College of Arts: testing my own receptivity within the definition of a context: Community Radio. what do i mean by community? Living, sounding (broadcasting from) rural Devon, across the Southams, over the globe via the world wide web, on into outerspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
hi!
My practice as a writer has been developing towards audio work, and I have been more and more interested in the medium of radio as a platform for showing my own work, and also in radio’s possible uses as a tool of social empowerment. I am wishing to understand how radio is being used by artists and activists to create spaces that function as community centres, and how radio can be used to facilitate well being for individuals and in localities.
I will need to define what I understand by ‘community’, and also clarify which model of radio I will be studying.
I will be avoiding an ethnographic definition of community, as that is a life times’ work in itself- instead I will work around the ideas and writings of radio and audio artists (Gregory Whitehead, Allen Weiss, Charles Bernstein) and also other writers, artists and activists that offer definitions of community movements that I see Soundart radio as aligning itself alongside (Joan Retallack’s ‘dialogic community’, bell hooks’ ‘communities of resistance’, Felix Guattari’s ‘free radio’ etc.).
Radio for this CEP is a small local public broadcasting venture called Soundart Radio 102.5 FM, which broadcasts under a community license- it is not run for political or commercial gain, it is run by and on behalf of its listening community, and represents both the community of its geographical area, and also radio as a living and historic ‘hot’ media with a international community of listeners, producers, makers and enthusiasts. I will be seeking to understand how Soundart radio fulfils the role of community /ies, and how it serves the desires of said community /ies, and will be reflecting upon and monitoring my own interaction with these ideas as a individual participating, listening and producing, and process this into both audio and writing documentations.
Broadcasting can be considered as a mirror to the way we live, and I am interested in programming and stations that offer alternative and considered options within their scheduling.
Radio art requires a consistent body of research and practice that concentrates on sound at its point of signification, not a literal reading that will collapse into cliché, but a sensitivity to the ways in which meaning in sound circulates, dissipates and re-emerges. The development of an autonomous body of theory and practice regarding aural referentuality- in particular as it relates to radio and electronic media- will contribute to a better understanding of the role that radio art plays in the articulation of social and cultural ideas. (Lander,D. 1994, Radiocastings: musings on radio and art in Radio Rethink
The two community models I will be focusing on are individuals sharing a geographically related relationship within the area of FM reception, and also communities physically distant but still communing /communicating, thorough both FM and Internet radio. I will be looking the social benefits of participation in the arts:
Personal: growth in confidence, creative and transferable skills, social lives are improved through friendships, enjoyment and involvement in the community. In a wider social context: confidence of minority and marginalised groups is gained, promoting social cohesion. There is empowerment of a community to be involved in local affairs, a strengthened commitment to place and an ability to tackle problems. Provides the opportunity to take positive risks, contribute to education and personal and social change (Matarasso, F, 1997: ‘Use or Ornament? Social impact of participation in the arts’ p79-81).
I have secured a practical intern-ship at Soundart radio from September through till December 2010. This community radio station's location, programming and programmers, its geographical area, it's international and local outreach projects and its ethos and manifesto are all relevant to my enquiry.
My particular artistic interest lies with
Transmissions that Publicise the Private, or through an opening of dialogic space create new energy and directions within a social order.
Programming that re-instates the authority of chaos and chance, within the context of a functioning community.
Broadcasting that foregrounds and celebrates ambiguity and individuality, supported by structures of acceptance and value.
Work that transforms attention into action and revitalizes languages’ and radio’s uses in the public sphere.
I intend to immerse myself in the life of this small radio station for my time there.
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