Essays on Radio: Can I Have Two Minutes of Your Time? is curated by Porto based media artist Miguel Carvalhais. Each of the 39 tracks, from contributors such as Freiband, Pita, Heimir Björgúlfsson and Carvalhais himself, clock in at the two minute mark, primarily so as to invite as many artists as possible, it seems, rather than aesthetic concerns. These brief “essays” are spun from the thesis that radio, as the longest surviving electronic medium, is in danger of being taken for granted, un-marvelled at. Yet not only was the radio mostly likely the first place where people were first exposed to white noise, it is an ideal instrument for the avant garde (as John Cage, on Imaginary Landscape # 4 and Stockhausen on Hymnen among others, recognised – the very twiddle of the dial is an indicator of both chance and simultaneity). Moreover, its every emissions amount to a “vast text” in both literal and, according to Maurice Blanchot, metaphorical space. Radio’s output is something which should be availed of and engaged with.
Opener “Oidar” by Longina functions as a signature tune for this idea, its banks of sound looming like Hubble clouds and taking a life of their own. Others like James Eck Rippie apply the notion practically. He manipulates vinyl recordings of old radio broadcasts in combination with turntables used as radio receivers to capture random broadcasts and frequencies. Elsewhere, contributions range from the musical to the amusical, the siren-luring to the dispensable. But there are many highlights. Lawrence English spins a line of crackle through what sounds like a dismal parlour room enlivened only by the chimes of a Grandfather clock – radio as a reactivator of dead bourgeois air, you might surmise. Stephan Mathieu weaves an elaborate, silvering awning of pure, serene noise, while Pimmon’s Ears That Hear features muffled fragments of momentous radio announcements across floating the ether, occasionally twisted inside out by intermittent spatial glitches. Overall, this is electronica that benefits from having a contextual purpose.
David Stubbs