Radio Silence

RADIO SILENCE by Nastassja Simensky
Collaboration / commissioned funded project (workshops and podcasts). 2022 – 2023
Arts Catalyst

Radio Silence – radio broadcasting

“Radio Silence is the third episode of the Leaky Transmissions podcast series. The collaborative audio-work emerged and developed from a poetry workshop led by Emma Bolland, to write experimentally about the spaces, metaphors, and struggles of ‘transmission’. In relation to analogue radio, the term ‘static’ is associated with faulty transmission or faulty reception—static is communication gone wrong. But what if ‘static’ is thought of as a rich space, a generative space, where the effort and struggle of communication is valued as a thing in itself?”

“I was interested in vibration. I was interested in what happens when you don’t say anything at all”— Bhanu Kapil, from Ban en Banlieue (2015). “The static is like the sound of thinking… It’s like the sound of thought itself, its hum and rush.” — Tom McCarthy, from C (2010).

“In this collaboration, Nastassja Simensky, Emma Bolland, Luce Choules (Laroche) and Gesa Helms explore the politics of ‘radio’ as a means of transmission, communication and interference. In a series of conversations following the workshop, collaborators shared, translated and responded to individual contributions from audio captioning, scripts, radio static, stutters and the ‘machine silence’ of Zoom. This material has then been mixed by Roisner and produced by sound Of ruins into a 12 minute audio-work. Radio Silence is accompanied by the original audio captioning from the workshop with Emma Bolland and individual reflections from the collaborators.”

Emergent Ecologies – Arts Catalyst programme

“Responding to Arts Catalyst’s Emergent Ecologies programme, Leaky Transmissions included spatial and sonic workshops, talks, and walks that have culminated in a series of audio works on Radio Arts Catalyst. The broadcasts include field recordings and new writing, alongside conversations with artists, academics and activists engaged with current social, political and environmental challenges in South Yorkshire and beyond. The series explores industrial afterlives, sonic and spatial poetics, and the politics of ‘radio’ as a means of transmission, collision and interference. As part of this project, Nastassja has also run two online workshops in 2022, Radio Silence with artist and writer Emma Bolland, and Poetry as Field Recording; Listening to the Fern Owl, with writer Mina Gorji. Participant contributions from these workshops inform some of the podcasts’ content.”

“Leaky Transmissions is a project by Nottingham-based artist Nastassja Simensky that explores changing land-use, and the potential of collaborative fieldwork involving artists and archaeologists.”

Summary:
Collaborative online project funded by Arts Catalyst / working remotely / public programme with workshops and broadcasts / working with artists and a cultural institution

Artists:
Emma Bolland
Luce Choules (Laroche)
Gesa Helms
Nastassja Simensky – organiser
Roisner

Project partner:
Arts Catalyst (Radio) Sheffield, UK

Keywords:
Environmental Art, Curated Landscapes, Ecology and Archaeology, Sound Recording and Broadcasting, Fieldwork.

Funded by: