Transmissions
In The Dark What’s New: We Were Being Taught a Lesson
Shivangi Mariam (IN 2021)
Shivangi Mariam (IN 2021)
8 min
Shivangi Mariam is a writer, independent researcher, and translator from India. The piece is about the function of memory in the face of mass violence.
The poem was written in response to a massacre that happened in Shivangi’s home city Delhi in 2020, a massacre where the victims continue to await justice. This is their first time matching their poetry to sound design. To do this, they collaborated with Osloob, a Palestinian rapper, singer, and music producer. For Osloob this is an experiment in style too, because he had never created sound design for spoken word.
Writing and concept by Shivangi Mariam
Sound Design by Osloob
In The Dark What’s New- Ways of Listening
James Bonney (UK 2023)
James Bonney (UK 2023)
4 min
James Bonney, a Bristol-based musician and aspiring audio-producer. He taught himself to record, edit and mix audio in his free time during his studies.
This is his first attempt at making his own piece from scratch — with original script, music and sound design. It’s an audio essay about the chalk downlands, which continue to play a significant role in James’s life.
Produced by James Bonney
In The Dark What’s New: The Meaning of Alexa
Owen Duff UK 2023)
The Owen Duff (UK 2022)
6 min
Owen Duff is an independent musician who also works part time for a London council. In the past couple of years he’s been experimenting with sound art, after taking a music masters course at Goldsmiths University.
“The Meaning of Alexa” is one of the pieces that he made on the course - an improvised piano and voice “duet” between Owen and an Amazon Echo smart speaker. It was originally a live performance, with improvised questions and piano playing in response to Alexa’s answer. Owen then edited and augmented this with sound design and also added in recordings that the Amazon Echo took itself, of him. It was inspired by writing on digital capitalism and neoliberalism by authors Han Byung-Chul, Wendy Brown and others.
Produced by: Owen Duff
My Synthetic Thoughts
Samuel Robinson ( 2023)
Samuel Robinson (UK 2023)
14 min
In 'My Synthetic Thoughts' the protagonist grapples with puzzling experiences, seeking meaning in a labyrinth of mental health, medication, memory, and the subconscious. Amidst the fog of unresolved time, their quest for understanding and peace becomes a poignant journey, revealing the intricate tapestry of their psyche.
Produced by Samuel Robinson
2000 Plus: Flying Saucers
Dryer/ Weenolsen (US 1950)
Dryer / Weenolsen - MBS (US 1950)
30 min
2000 Plus (aka Two Thousand Plus and 2000+) was an American old-time radio series that ran on the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1950 to 1952, in various 30-minute time slots. A Dryer Weenolsen production, it was the first adult science fiction series on radio using all new material.
The radio equivelant to a black and white saturday matine movie; dated, kitsch and a journey into another era.
Produced by : Sherman H. Dryer
Written by: Robert Weenolsen
The Peephole
Andrea Kristinsdottir (US/ISL 2023)
Andrea Kristinsdottir (US/ISL 2023)
10 min
A deepdive into a workplace bathroom. What exactly happens there other there other the obvious? Why would you not want to do the things that you’re supposed to do there?
Andrea Kristindottir likes to focus on the smallest everyday places that reveal musch more about the wider world around us.
Produced by: Andrea Kristindottir
The Crossing Guard Tapes: Tape 1 Side A
Jim Waters (US 2023)
Jim Waters (US 2023)
13 min
In a world where cities are playgrounds and playgrounds are arenas. Where arenas are battlegrounds, and battlegrounds are sectioned into streets and streets are bisected by school crosswalks and school crosswalks are the frontline in an ancient battle where crossing guards are the warriors that stand between the everyday, holding up a stop sign to the end of days... and the end of days is going way over 15 MPH/30 KPH in a school crossing zone.
When Mike Limbo gets hired as a Crossing Guard, he’s slowly dragged into an underground world he never knew existed…
You’ll never look at crossing guards (lollipop people in the UK) in the same way again.
Produced by : Jim Waters
This is Chicago: Alley
Supraphonic Studios (US 2023)
Supraphonic Studios (US 2023)
7 min, Episode 10 of 18
In an undisclosed alley, a diver finds divinity among the dumpsters. Bada bing, bada boom! Who knew dumpster diving could be so lucrative?
This series of short audio portraits from Chicago draws from the long lineage of oral history recording in the city, perhaps inspired by the likes of Studs Terkel and the assumption that everyone has a story if you just ask.
Produced and recorded by Stephen Pate and Ashlie Stevens
Created by Supraphonic Studios
Follow the series
Soft Life: Time
Alannah Chance and Axel Kacoutié (UK 2023)
Alannah Chance and Axel Kacoutié (UK 2023)
32 min 3 of 4
This four-part series takes the idea of ‘soft life’ as a launch off point to explore alternative ideas around work, time, the body and ecology emanating from Somerset House and beyond. They talk to radical thinkers, artists and writers, who are carving out these new ways of being in the body, centring the soft and the in-between, finding space for rest and looking at ways of expanding time beyond the clock.
How can we make time free?
This episode contemplates different ways of experiencing time beyond the linear, with Somerset House Studios artist Shenece Oretha on transforming time through the practice of listening, sociologist Judy Wajcman on unpicking progress from speed in the digital sphere and psychologist Dr Ruth Ogden on how our experience of time is relational and whether it’s possible to conceive of ‘free time’ in a modern world.
Produced by: Alannah Chance and Axel Kacoutié
Sound by: Axel Kacoutié and additional music by Ellen Zweig
Produced by Somerset Studios