The final in this 3 speakers-3 questions build up to the Symposium is with Udo Noll, the founder of Radio Aporee.  I first met Udo during a Sounds of Europe workshop in Prague earlier this year, where I had the opportunity to find out more about this project, a platform for the artistic research of concepts and practices related to sound, place and spatial conditions. Radio Aporee provides tools and techniques for the engagement and interaction with actual environments, in and in between real and virtual spaces. It suggests listening as a way to enrich and intensify the experience and perception of the world around us.  

1) How did you first become involved in field recording?

That was relatively late, about 1998 or so. I was involved in  the net.art scene, and in that context I’ve experimented a lot with internet radio / streaming. within a global reach, i was interested in small areas, places, and how to make connections in between. So I bought a small minidisc recorder and a binaural microphone set, and also began to play with collaborative plattforms.  I was not completely new to sound recording though, I had worked a few times as a recordist for (amateur) movies, during my studies.  And there’s a very old fascination for radio, both formats and techniques.  At the age of 18 I had a small self-built FM station in my home village, for a few months…I’ve heard many experimental broadcasts, works by sound artists etc. on german radio. Bill Fontana i could hear every morning at the subway station in Cologne, he had a permanent art piece there.   So, some lines of interest came together…

2) Sneak preview: what can the In the Field audience expect from your talk?

my absence 😉  (Udo will not be present in person but will be conducting his talk via live audio stream, n.d.R.)  Besides a short intoduction into Radio Aporee concepts & projects, I’ll try to explain, also with short sound collages, the notion of ‘field’ as I experience and understand it from my work with sound, maps and networks. Notes and observations on hybrid forms of usage, exchange and practices; the role of the archive, when the key to access is your location; the role of the listener.

3) What would you like to see come out of the Symposium experience?

Connections between people, their work, different practises and approaches.
That happens of course all the time on the various forums and lists on the
net, but being there and meeting people personally in my experience makes
strong connections, which are often the base for new work and collaborations.

 

In conversation with La Cosa Preziosa