Notes on Camp, WBEZ: (contributors) Adam Davidson, Julie Snyder 1998
The story is told through interchanging narration and audio clips from the camps themselves. The piece takes six story lines from summer camps relays different narratives to illustrate each scenario. Some, the recent ones written about for the project, have audio clips, while others which recount adult's memories of summer camp do not. All however, are linked with the same earthy harmonica music and create the same atmosphere which illustrates how camp is impervious to outside changes. Kids will always come back to camp no matter what video games may tempt them to stay indoors.
This program literally moved me to tears. By the end I had visual accounts of every camp introduced and made me yearn to be part of the comradery portrayed. It brought me back to my own past and present experiences both going to and working at a summer camp. It’s funny how it’s both a satire and an ode. On one hand, the narrators are almost mocking of the dramas of summer camp while also reminiscing about how camp was the embodiment of childhood. The most poignant moment comes near the end when a girl in her last few hours of camp realizes how much she is going to miss it. In her description of the sensory parts of camp like the slamming door and crunch of the path, we as the audience realize that this is the soundtrack we've heard all along and never paid much attention to either.
Her Long Black Hair, Janet Cardiff 2004
This piece takes walking tours to a whole new level. When it was presented, it required the listener to walk with headphones around London and carry photos with them. The listener, therefor is not only perceptive of their own present surroundings but they are also immersed in the stream of consciousness of the piece that both parallels and differs from what the listener actually sees. The speaker's tone is extremely flat as she weaves in and out of subjects both past and present, allowing the listener to delve inside her head rather than have her as a companion. We're never really sure of who, what or when because the narrative changes perspective to past lives and experiences coinciding with the places on the walk.
This is particularly fascinating because I’m always trying to conjur sensory aspects of ahistory site in order to somehow steep myself in it’s reality—like two hundred years ago, a woman my age might have stood just where I’m standing wearing petticoats and a corset and living a life entirely different from my own, but with the same emotions and feelings. This allows that. You can’t experience a place two-dimensionally and without sound. This is a beautiful way to tell the story and still leave enough for the imagination to hunger for more. This creates a 3-D atmosphere, how sound bounces off difference surfaces and how it erects a landscapes and eras with just sound—how you overhear so many narratives every day and never comprehend any of them and can never hope to know everyone’s story. It’s like the audio for the film of life and gives you a walking companion so that going to unknown places isn’t so alienating.
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Dreams Telephone Series 2008-10
There was no audio clip to sample for this one but I can imagine the intimacy of picking up a phone and hearing a dream would be startling, especially since we are impulsively programmed to perceive a voice on a phone as direct communication to us. A dream is also something extremely personal it is the way the brain deals with everyday stresses. The way the dream is told is crucial to the presentation, whether it is just recounted vocally or given sound effects and an atmosphere. The approach is not clear.
Robert Ashley She Was A Visitor 1930
This piece begins with a proper-sounding voice stating "She was a visitor" in a very neutral way, almost as if it was just an informative sentence in an audiobook. The sentence repeats every second for 5 minutes, but what changes is the background noise. What starts as slight white noise gradually crescendos to ominous roaring and moaning of an unknown instrument. It's scary and abstract tones lead the listener to wonder was "she" a paranormal visitor? She obviously wasn't a pleasant visitor, or a visitor that did not meet a pleasant end. I find it intriguing that the mind creates so many scenarios in the space of one minute in order to fit the dictations of 4 words "she was a visitor". She becomes so illusive in the listener's mind that the ominous sounds almost allow you to hear her small whispers by the end when the white noise overshadows the dialogue.
John Cage Exerpt from Silence 1969
Whether or not this is meant to be serious is unclear. What seems like poetic prose is basically an intellectual projection and analysis of the modern world, or 1960s modern world, and US Imperialism. He remarks on the greedy nature of Americans and of mankind. To illustrate these truths, he uses simplistic voice recording and verbally creates visual metaphors to explain his logic.
The War of the Worlds, Orson Wells 1938
I could imagine this would be frightening to younger audiences since this 1938 radio broadcast involves the audience within the story. As radio was really the only mass media back then, it was much easier to create an illusion. The broadcast is dramatic but not too much so that it loses it's authenticity. The beginning is a bit humorous due to
the constant return to dance music between world events unfolding. It treats the listener as just that, a listener, as if the events of the radio show were happening right then and they were receiving news of it.
One by one each radio station fails and goes silent, giving a sense of abandonment and then is picked up at the end an ordinary citizen. It is apparent that The Twilight Zone andI Am Legend were heavily influenced and inspired by the themes in this broadcast. The sound effects in the background of the radio field announcers are also ominous and impressively realistic for the time period.
