Listening Room 2

'Sound is a wave moving through a medium — particles of air dispersing, water quivering. So much of you is just air and water, porous membranes and soft tissue. Sound is moving through you too. It is the small ringing of birdsong that reaches you, still half submerged in dream-sleep, and pulls you onto shore. As you lie on your back with sun soaked eyelids, it is the tall windswept grass - a sampling of transparent tones, that wraps you in gauzy layers. It is a friend or a lover who turns to you and whispers, hot breath pressing words through from mouth to ear - a kind of resuscitation. It is goosebumps, and butterflies, and sinking stomachs. It is a rippling vibration moving from the earth to the bottoms of your feet, inward and upward and through. 

With the belief that sound is a kind of touch, this selection of works for Soundhouse centres around the tactile qualities of sound—those which ground us in our bodies and to our surroundings. Pieces were selected for their potential to provoke actual, physical sensations in listeners, for their attunement to sound as a physical material with textural qualities, and for their reflection of visceral sensations or sensory-rich environments.'

Ariana Martinez

Based in New York City, Ariana Martinez is a multimedia artist and radio maker working with sound, video, drawing, and sculptural objects. Guided by training in both the fine arts and in urban studies, their practice investigates the impact of geography, infrastructure, space, and place on individual and collective experience. Ariana has produced stories for BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, KCRW's The Organist, among others. Ariana believes in sound's unique potential as a physical presence - as something that can be felt in our surroundings and in our bodies - to tell us about where we are and how we're going to move through it.

Featured in this room

Air Can Break Your Heart // Anna Friz
A radio artwork that relates dreams of rising and falling through the fragile element of air.
First heard: Radiophrenia, CCA Gallery Glasgow, Scotland; and Resonance FM, London

^{Created and produced by Anna Friz
Produced at: Skálar | Sound Art | Experimental Music, Seydisfjördur, East Iceland
Air can break your heart is the first half of a longer radio art commission entitled “Two Sleeps”, produced for Radio Arts, UK.}

Qualia // Charo Calvo
Five women artists living in Brussels, all raised in several languages, tell a vital moment, an intense sensorial experience, that left a physical imprint. One of them is not telling the truth.
First heard: ABC Soundproof

^{Produced by Charo Calvo
Co-produced: ACSR bruxelles, Carmelo Iannuzzo et FACR Wallonie- Bruxelles
Voices and texts: Kitty Crowther, Zahava Seewald, Sonia Pastecchia, Meryem Bayram, Charo Calvo.
Translation and French voice (French version): Laurence Vielle
Translation and English voice (English version): Caroline Daish
Recordings: Bastien Hidalgo Ruiz (Voices at acsr.be studio), Charo Calvo ( Wild Track studio)
Director, Editing, Sound Design and Mix: Charo Calvo
Mastering: Bastien Hidalgo Ruiz}

w a d e // James T. Green
An audio work based on a poem written while looking out into the East River.
First heard: U+1f60c

^{Produced by James T. Green}

Freeing Sensuality // Ariel Mejia
A mundane moment of getting in and out of a bathtub.
First heard: Ariel Mejia's Soundcloud

^{Written and produced by Ariel Mejia
Sound designed collaboratively with Myra Al-Rahim.}

Singing On the Line // Aliya Pabani
Aliya Pabani goes to a vocal coach to look into the extent of her vocal cord damage, and the contours of the voice she has left.
First heard: Part of a sonic exhibition, Resonant Bodies, produced by the podcast, Constellations. Originally constructed as a four-channel audio installation, this piece played back on four speakers fabricated from four balloons.

^{Produced by Aliya Pabani
Featuring: Aliya’s voice alongside vocal coach and musician Kritty Uranowski.}

Hello Echo // Sara Brooke Curtis
A scene between a mother and son in quarantine together in late March.
First heard: Audio Playground

^{Produced by Sara Brooke Curtis}

Perfect Love // Ariana Martinez
Artist Taehee Whang hopes to reconnect with their grandfather after his death. Inspired by Taehee Whang's video artwork, Walking to My Grandfather's Mound.
First heard: Between the Essays, BBC Radio 3

^{Produced by Ariana Martinez
A Falling Tree Production}

Sand // Ariel Mejia
The feeling of finding your own relics. First heard on: Ariel Mejia's Soundcloud

^{Produced by Ariel Mejia
Editorial influence: Nicole Kelly, Phoebe Unter, and Mara Lazer at the Radio Rejects Residency in Idyllwild, California in 2019.}

Patchouli // James T. Green
The smell of Patchouli, a response to the Audio Playground prompt to recreate a favourite smell in sound.
First heard: Audio Playground

^{Produced by James T. Green}

Collage and animation by Nina Garthwaite with images courtesy of Ariana Martinez.