Radio 1

4-channel Sound Piece
Duration: 6 min 03 s.

“Suddenly there was the possibility to say anything to everyone, but opon reflection there was nothing to be said”.

Bertolt Brecht.

The telegraph, the telephone, the radio –these devices arguably reshaped the course of the last century. But, in effect, they merely preserve and propagate fragments of historical data-information disassociated from both source and recipient that can be rearranged with the turn of the dial. Radio technology emerged-heralded by waves of optimism and great expectations-only to be absorbed, transformed into wartime propaganda machines, junk peddlers, and glorified jukeboxes. Reflecting this deflation of purpose, when taken to an extreme, the act of electronic transmission abates de communicative potential of speech. In the electronic realm, wods dissipate as soon as they are uttered, rendered into pulses of electricity floating in space. Each discernable unit is, in effect, the self-contained delivery of a thought, concept, or dormant history-that can be rearranged at will to form new realities. In Radio1 the human voice is abstracted, effectively obliterating its communicative capacity. Once discernable words, all culled from the public airwaves, become the mere coupling of tones delivered as sensory rather than informative message. Radio1 is a quadraphonic sound piece for tape. This is a stereo version.

Luz María Sánchez