Most radio features voice or music, and communicates this to people wherever they are. Acoustic ecologists such as Bruce Davis have reimagined radio in a different way: as an observational tool for ‘listening in’ or invading remote, singular environments, giving an ear to things other than talk and sound organised by humans. Artist Anna Friz suggests that instead of understanding radio as a ‘container for content’ it can be used as a means to explore communications and relationships between people and (their) things. It can facilitate ‘many-to-many’ exchanges and layered ecologies of transmission.
This session, we shared live sounds of our local environments using the ‘Locus Cast’ app. I found this experience extremely thought provoking; at first, having a class listen in to the sounds that surround you, almost sitting on your shoulder, observing the environment, made me feel a sense of invasion and ultimately made me a tad uncomfortable. However, after about 2-3 minutes, the discomfort I was experiencing faded away and left me almost inviting others to put themselves in my surroundings as much as possible.