These studies were conducted as part of my doctoral research into radiophonic art practice. As I refocused my research toward consideration of the post-radiophonic work the results of this six months research no longer sat strictly within my thesis parameters. I present them here for those interested in research into radio art, art radio, and speech-based and text-sound composition.
Analyses of Three Radiophonic Works
My purpose in developing these descriptive poietic analyses in the first instance has been to account for concrete practice in the poiesis of the purely radiophonic art. From this close study, I have identified concepts that I consider essential for the understanding and practice of radiophonic art. The analysis I have made of the three purely radiophonic works, Granados, My Poor Room, and The Glass Cage, divide each account into their production phases, and within that each constituent creative practice, noting the sonic materials produced and the creative strategies and techniques used to produce them. Since creative practices interact in the production of sonic materials, there is a degree of overlap in these accounts as the same complex processes are approached from distinct creative practices. My descriptive poetics has only served to confirm how entangled, enmeshed and simply messy these processes can be in concrete practice. Nevertheless, I believe persisting with this approach has enabled to introduce an unusual degree of informal rigour into these accounts.
In creative praxis, theory is inseparable from practice in conscious creative radiophonic practice. These non-fictional narrativisations of concrete radiophonic practice are not intended to produce prescriptive aesthetic laws but instead identify the logic of the poiesis and types of creative decision-making (production dramaturgy) in which the radiophonic artist must engage. These analyses also allow me to describe how spontaneous creative praxis works in practice as I respond to changing conditions; and also invite spontaneous practice to generate unanticipated material (surprises). They show the complexity of influences, interactions, contexts etc., that condition creative decision-making (artistic agency) in radiophonic poiesis.
These analyses required the development of a conceptual framework that informs radiophonic practice, and simultaneously serves to verify its efficacy. I believe that a conscious engagement with this conceptual framework can invigorate a creative radiophonic praxis. By mapping the various aspects of radiophonic production, this framework can uncover underutilised approaches, strategies, techniques appropriate to radiophonic praxis for the benefit of both the radiophonic artist and the listener.