CAPTIONING VOICE AND RADIO

There is not one thing in isolation this (or my work in general) is "about". This soundscape was an exploration of broadcast as well as an extension of myself as a body of trans/otherness. Who are you speaking to/for/about/over?

Following extensive research into dictating non verbal language and ‘meaningful’ communication, ‘FOR LACK OF BETTER WORDS’ is a realisation of a crip perspective on information processing and expected function within a lifespan.

The ‘Transitters’ challenge the idea of waste, collected from outside of my GP, they primarily serve as a space to rest, listen and process. Mended and restored using entirely unwanted material they are incapable of any ‘sucessful’ electrical purpose- instead they perform the image of ability or ablebodiness.

The antennas of the transitters ‘intercepted' the connecting messenger cable between two speakers. A low level cyclical broadcast of a hubub of voices, recognisable and unrecognisable languages sampled from shortwave radio. It forms a rhizomatic narrative (having neither a beginning nor an end but always a middle) that dips in and out of linear comprehension. This soundscape was then transcribed phonetically and broadcasted using a LED screen ticker designed for advertisement, subtitling the exhibit.

Raised as a BSL native speaker, I set out to include and translate the spacial nature of my native tongue/hand into audio as well as facilitating a space to explore non linear transmission, understanding and processing- where meaning comes from and where it can be found. In language, tone, pace, intention, repetition, inclusion or removal (etc).

Speakers installed are mounted at head height becoming the head and mouthpiece for the unseen. They are also explicitly to be something that can be touched as objects that move (vibrate) with the soundscape.

SSTV : SLOW SCAN TELEVISION

FOUND USAGE OF RADIO+++
::: USER GUIDE ON OPERATIONAL USE FOR LACK OF BETTER WORDS

This work was made withing the explicit context of an arts institution. The lack of current cultural awareness and the absence of any mention of Palestine was so loud you would have to stop speaking. I am generallising but I was hoping for collective unity or bare consciousness. Working within a university that refuses to acknowledge genocide and suppresses student voices - my love for nuance in this instance I fear will contribute to that NOISE. I wont do that. And so i am explicit.

I can still be interested in radio and static and noise and maintain my ethics. Israel is suppressing and censoring Palestinian voices and culture through media control and regular electricity blackouts. Because of this as I scoured WEBSDR and failed to access any frequencies being used to broadcast from Palestine, instead multiple IOF morse stations logged by other WEBSDR users. Researching into military uses of radio especially after finding multiple IOF morse stations as well as learning about the IOF's commercial radio station. Under a military government and martial law it would make twisted sense that the military are also in explicit control over media broadcast. This makes sense when you understand a military state government but a military state govornment makes no sense.
An army operated radio station broadcasting pop music and news does not make sense.

This is a broadcast I can control, I did not want to simulate voice and so, with what I was able to tune into the IOF's static absence loops throughout >> my direct removal of specific voice >> inclusion as power for the oppressed as well as exclusion as power against the opressor. It also can read as a sonic placeholder for the silence of corporate complicity directly present in the private sector (which includes universities).

It raises questions towards the voices that are platformed, many of which I can't understand. I don't believe a lack of total mediation is then wrong. It is all live on air all the time; what you tune into is locked to when and where it happened. There are many factors you can't control, including understanding. My transcriptions balance this uncertainty; they are somewhat legible and phonetically transcribed. I re-appropriate characters and numbers to be placeholders for sounds the english keyboard can't facilite through its language. Good grammar and standard language is a product of imperialist values. My noise, my transcripts are in direct defiance of "clean and propper". I also believe in working critically with material be it voice or visual etc but you can not ignore the spectacle that comes with platforming. I don't have answers but that is also ok, as long as you keep asking and you keep trying.

In our lifetimes.