Between sleep and dreams
radio art narrative (55:00)
by John F. Barber
First broadcast: stress.FM as part of the Echoes #1: How to get lost and start listening, Lisbon, Portugal, 13-14 July 2013
Subsequent broadcasts: framework radio as « framework:afield #433 », 9-15 September 2013
Previous iterations: Cough+Sniff Radio Arts Festival, Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada, March 2013 (My 27:30 prototype, without student samples.)
Statement
« Between sleep and dreams » imagines the enigma of waking, the narratives assimilated by ones (sub)conscious from sounds heard during liminal dreaming as an ongoing acousmatic collage, rising and falling like waves on the surface of perception, difficult to attain, difficult to escape.
This work is both personal and collaborative. You can hear my liminal soundscape: traffic noise, my cats eating, my heartbeat, my snoring, and other incorporated sounds. Additionally, I have sampled work by students in my Internet Radio: Theory into Practice class, taught spring 2013, where we explored the realm « between sleep and dreams. »
Echoes is a transdisciplinary program undertaken by the art collective Osso for the city of Lisbon, with a focus on thoughts, experiences, and interventions on the topics of listening and place. The project was presented over four weekends every two months beginning in July 2013 and featured debates, concerts, workshops, soundwalks, film screenings, and radio broadcasts. The common theme was how soundscape and aurality contribute to a sense of place. Echoes #1: How to get lost and start listening, curated by Paulo Raposo, followed the theme « how to get lost and start listening. » Submissions were encouraged to investigate « topographies and geographies, and social and cultural narratives through poetic imagination, arising the possibility for a deeper commitment with the landscape, the architectural space and the community. » Jury selected works were broadcast and streamed by stress.fm, 12-14 July 2013.
Timeline and content description
00:00 Sample, « Dreamscapes » by Dustin King, Andrew Dizinno, Nicholas Rudy, Randall Theil
00:55 Snoring
1:31 Heartbeat, normal
1:57 Early morning traffic
3:10 Matrix
3:27 Television next door
3:58 Wind up flashlight
4:56 Water down parking lot drain
5:53 Cats eating
7:10 Engine idling
7:33 Pencil scribble
8:36 Dream ambience
10:30 Dream ambience
14:31 Dream ambience
15:32 Dream ambience
17:31 Dream ambience
17:44 Dream ambience
19:38 Wii menu background
20:41 Heartbeat, normal
20:59 Water down parking lot drain
23:45 Early morning traffic
24:03 Alien voices
25:04 Alien voices
26:04 Alien voices
26:53 Sample, « Radio Art » by Adam Denny
27:26 Snoring
31:14 Sample, « Walking_door_crowds_words_door_glass » by Jacob Hanson
32:57 Sample, « Experience the bowling alley » by Glenda Rothfus and Shane Sullivan
35:20 Sample, « Dreamscapes » by Dustin King, Andrew Dizinno, Nicholas Rudy, Randall Theil
42:32 Heartbeat, normal
45:36 Snoring
53:36 Snoring
54:46 Sample, « Dreamscapes » by Dustin King, Andrew Dizinno, Nicholas Rudy, Randall Theil
55:00 end
Biographical statement
John F. Barber teaches in The Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver. With regard to sound+radio art, he is interested in opportunities afforded by Internet radio, online iReportage, and geo-locative audio-based immersive/interactive experiences, especially as they might promote aural compositions/performances/installations as the basis for engaged narrative.