| Notice (en) : |
This piece was composed in response to Koji Marutani’s request for pieces for his End ID CD (Digital Narcis label). The theme was to address the technological advances that occurred in the 20th Century in some way. I used shortwave broadcasts as the sole source for this piece. There is only one small section which has processing, the rest being raw, unprocessed data (sound) direct from the shortwave radio, so it is full of static, distortion, clicks, pops and all sorts of wonderful, but usually undesirable artifacts. This open window to the world, with all its noise, seems to make the world bigger and more precious/precarious than it would were every broadcast received with perfect digital clarity. The piece moves from communication that was in use in the early 20th Century (Morse code transmissions) to the present (which uses the medium of shortwave and various media—CD’s, reel to reel tapes, cassettes, minidiscs, etc. as sources). As all these types of signals from around the world are available in many languages (including Morse Code) concurrently in shortwave broadcasts, it’s as if the entire 20th Century were compressed in time/space. |