Soundscapes of the imagination

The final panel of this afternoon at "Radio Without Boundaries" conference was "Soundscapes of the imagination: the grey area between fact and fiction" moderated by Andra McCartney with Gregory Whitehead, Helene Prevost, and Alessandro Bosetti. This turned into the most lively session, actually argumentative, with Whitehead playing his usual contrarian role, challenging the status quo. At first the panel equated Orson Welles with George Bush as hoax-mongers (I reminded them that Welles' repeatedly announced that "The War of the Worlds" was a radio play during the broadcast). Whitehead then asked, "Where is the protest art," and some in the audience argued back that it was out there. We were all way off topic at this point (Whitehead's Twitter rant was hilarious). But it was engaging radio. Soundscapes haven't been mentioned in 30 minutes. Authenticity became the topic. "The master narratives are still unfolding," Whitehead said. "I am very interested in the productive role of dead air in that scenario," Anna Friz said, in a response of sorts.

Andra McCartney on soundscapes

Andra McCartney is a multimedia soundscape artist, composer, performer and poet. Currently she is working on 'Soundwalking Home', a series of soundwalks through neighborhoods in which she has lived, and a soundscape documenting the Lachine Canal region, near Montreal. McCartney's installations have been shown at Maid in Cyberspace Encore (Montreal), KAAI Modern Fuel Gallery (Kingston, Ontario), miXing Women In Sound Art Festival (Chicago), The Kitchen ... Her writings have been published in Leonardo Music Journal, MusicWorks ... She has collaborated with visual artist P.S. Moore, championed the work of soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp, and she is actively involved with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. She lives in Montreal and is teaches at Concordia University, Montreal.

McCartney talked about her work with soundscapes, with lots of recordings of bells, trains, boats. She prefers in-ear binaural mics, although occasionally uses a hand-held stereo mic when she wants to make it clear to folks she is recording.