Integrating live broadcast radio into automated live electronic works
Adam Jansch · 2010
The use of live broadcast radio as material in music composition was made prominent by John Cage in Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951). As a sonic medium which is almost omnipresent, carrying up-to-the-minute information and accessible through widely available demodulation technology, radio has intrinsic features that make its integration into musical works aesthetically and conceptually desirable. As part of my wider research aims ‐ the investigation of distributable open outcome music ‐ I have approached live broadcast radio as a material to integrate into a suite of automated live electronic works. Pieces in this suite include multi-channel electroacoustic and video works, and a prototype for a distributable hardware-based open outcome pop song. Focussing on radio as voice and as a vehicle the pieces explore a number of creative uses for such material, including environment generation, listening mode modulation and time/locality disruption. The deployment of stations across radio networks emphasising a listener's geographical location, and the radio stream as a perpetually occurring current event will also be discussed, as will technical details and issues regarding the implementations of radio employed in the pieces.