Arctic Anti-Radio

"Arctic Anti-Radio" is an essay which focuses on a series of field recordings made by the author that combine conventional microphones with sensor systems designed to capture the energies and dynamic properties of electro-magnetic radiation. These recordings were made in North Norway / Sápmi, a region where Norwegian energy infrastructure projects relating to hydro-electric and wind power are presented as part of a green transition away from a fossil fuel economy and yet have been met by resistance from Sámi and others who believe these structures pose threats to indigenous lives and places and to more-than-human populations such as birds (affected by wind turbines) and reindeer (affected by underground cables and acces routeways).

The essay describes these conflicts, the processes involved in recording the electro-magnetic energies of infrastructure and considers how an audio essay might develop that is beholden neither to the 'musical' as form nor to the voice as interpretative authority and nor to the sleeve or programme note as textual support. Is there an audio essay that can be lead by sound that has not been processed according to conventions of audibility? What kinds of expectation would such an approach place on its listeners? As the volume's introduction has it "Carlyle uses this as an opportunity to ask whether the audio essay continues to bow too much to the didacticism of the traditional essay form, clinging to insistently to fragments of the textual archive as anchors from which sound can take off".

The wider edited volume seeks to explore ideas of the 'audio essay,' a relatively new coining but a concept that resonates not just with cognate notions such as the video essay or film essay but with earlier forms of reflective thought in sonic form.

Other contributors, artists, philosophers, curators, include Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lendl Barcelos, Justin Barton, Ben Borthwick, Matt Colquhoun, Jessica Edwards, Kodwo Eshun, Steve Goodman, Ayesha Hameed, Eleni Ikoniadou, Lawrence Lek, Robin Mackay, Paul Nataraj, Emily Pethick, Iain Sinclair and Shelley Trower.

• https://www.urbanomic.com/chapter/sonic-...