Voice Station: A Portfolio of Four Works Exploring Radio Art and Its Mediated Voices

Date
2023-09-19
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Abstract
This study pertains to the creative explorations of the human voice and the radio medium through a portfolio of four projects titled Voice Station. The research and creative processes of the portfolio draw on the practices of radio art, a genre that encompasses a wide range of artistic experimentations with the conventions and complexities of the medium. Voice Station centres the human voice as the only compositional material to investigate how recorded and mediated voices can be used artistically in diverse radio environments by employing distinct platforms and technologies: Voice Station I (2019-21) is a fixed-medium composition that offers a sonic vocabulary for the portfolio and, thus, establishes its conceptual and technological foundations; Voice Station II (2021-22) is a web-based, participatory live stream comprising vocal materials contributed and curated by the participants; Voice Station III (2022) is a radio installation that invites visitors to an interactive listening experience via the radio dial in a gallery environment; finally, selected episodes of my ongoing radio program at CJSW FM, Vocal Cords, provide an examination of the relationships between radio and voice from a broader perspective of campus and community broadcasting. The vocal catalogue, audio processing methods, and formal strategies emerging from each project are recycled and evaluated throughout the portfolio. This iterative practice uncovers sonic and metaphorical similarities between the two core concepts of this study, radio and voice, and presents a structural model shared by each project.
Description
Keywords
radio, voice, electroacoustic composition, installation, media arts
Citation
Ceylan, M. (2023). Voice Station: a portfolio of four works exploring radio art and its mediated voices (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.