A personal history inscribed in a technical history.
Or, as Whitehead himself describes it, "The strange and inescapable
desire to electrocute myself, under the delusion that I will then somehow
be able to fly. Brainwaves and radiowaves: magnetic dreams. BUT: the
con/current fear of the CRASH, "ending up in a burn unit." Radio as
a sensual seduction and political provocation. Radio as a theater of
ideas.
Winner of the 1993 PRIX FUTURA Berlin. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN
RADIO.
GREGORY WHITEHEAD (Nantucket, MA) is a writer,
audio artist, and the director of sea-crow media. He has produced over
fifty radio features, voice works, and earplays for programs in the
United States and abroad. Drawing on his background in improvised music
and experimental theater, Whitehead has created a body of radiophonic
work distinguished by its playfully provocative blend of text, concept,
voice, music, and pure sound. Production credits include:
Dead
Letters,
Pressures of
The Unspeakable (Prix Italia, 1992), and NEW AMERICAN RADIO
commissions:
Lovely Ways to Burn
(1990),
Shake, Rattle and Roll
(1992) (BBC Award, Prix Futura, 1993) and
The
Thing About Bugs (1994). He is also the author of numerous essays
on subjects relating to language, technology, and "the public", and
he co-edited
Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio and the Avant-Garde,
a selective history of audio and radio art (MIT Press).
The Thing About Bugs
(1994)
With Christof Migone. In this collaborative "field trip", Migone and
Whitehead invite us into their bug-infested soundscape to investigate
live wire cross-currents of extermination and redemption; the vitality
of dirt and the urge to clean; the joys of pure noise and the fate
of bodies gone to the worms. Professional exterminators philosophize
about their daily warfare against other species while the producers
orchestrate a mad carnival of the True Bugs.
Winner of a Special Commendation at the 1994 PRIX FUTURA Berlin. Commissioned
by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
Pressures of the Unspeakable
(1991)
Over the course of several weeks, Whitehead, as "Resident Director of
the International Institute for Screamscape Studies" established a Scream
Room at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and a National Scream
Line answering machine, where screams were collected. The resulting
work for broadcast combines selections from participating screamers,
in counterpoint with notes and ruminations on the fundamentals of scream
discourse. Together they map a journey into the vast territories of
the Australian screamscape.
Produced for The Listening Room, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Winner of the 1992 PRIX ITALIA.
Degenerates in Dreamland (1991)
"A radio manifesto in memory of the body in pieces." (Whitehead)
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
Lovely Ways to Burn
(1990)
A fascinating docu-performance on the contradictory aspects of fire/electricity:
seduction and power -- fear and destruction. "Everybody's got the fever,"
a chorus sings in many variations, providing the glue for several intercut
and inter-related stories: the fiery childhood memories of a young woman;
expert ruminations on the use of electro-shock in therapy and as capital
punishment; and sonic outbursts of pyromania.
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
Phantom Pain -- The Theater of Operations
(1989)
"I opened this place," the narrator says, "as an inter-disciplinary
center for exploring the phenomenon of phantom pain. Phantom pain is
the experience of pain in an area where the real organs of sensation
no longer exist. The problem then is finding some way to address the
reality of feelings that have been cut loose from the body. So as a
director of the center my main role is to try to facilitate making connections
in a situation, where real contact among the subjects is impossible."
(from the work)
Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1987)
A journey into the seductive and dangerous zone between Eros and Thanatos.
With a "cameo" appearance by Freud's prosthetic jaw.
Display Wounds (1986)
A fictionalized monologue that addresses the "woundscape" of the human
species in the wake of the history of technology through the brooding
ruminations of a "vulnerologist" -- a wound doctor whose slow and seductive
voice unfolds the history of wounds, and the damage that extends even
into the future, (mis)shaping the unborn. Punctuated by periodic suggestions
from tango music ("Life is but a dry wound. Oh hot-blooded sadness,
bleed away from me.")
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
Dead Letters (abridged version) (1985)
Starring in this unusual documentary are the Rosetta Stone, the Body
of Judy Garland's Voice, Hitler's Handwriting, Fake Fingers, the Tongues
of Extinct Dinosaurs, Napoleon's penis and other dead letters. Both
darkly humorous and highly informative, this work points new directions
in the art of radio documentary. Dead Letters was produced independently
as a one-hour program.
How to Pronounce "Prosthesis" (1991) (4:45)
A new castaway in search of a prosthetic language.
M is for the Million Things (1991) (2:40)
A co-commission of Harvestworks, Inc., the Wexner Center for the Arts,
and NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
In Malpais (1990) (5:90)
"It's the Malpais. We're talkin' about hot sand, black rocks, and
a whole lotta dead things." A dreamlike geography.
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
The Respirator (1990) (5:30)
Sensual and unusual audio art inspired by the terminal illness of the
broadcast medium. "There is no sign of brain activity, but we are able
to keep the patient breathing through the use of the respirator."
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
totenklage/lacrimosa (1990) (3:30)
Two words migrate into each other to compose an acoustic requiem.
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
Twilight for Idols (1990) (4:25)
An incantation in homage to the wasted memory of utopia.
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
It makes me blush. . . (1990) (3:45)
Male Digger Bees (1990) (5:44)
An account of the energetic habits of the male digger bee. "Listen to
the following scenario: Powered by the laws of Darwinian selection,
each digger bee is born with the instinct to reproduce more than any
other member of its species, driving the males to excavate, tumble,
fight, mount, and sing in the hot desert sun." (From the work).
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
Radio Degree Zero (1990) (1:25)
A drop-in polemic to slow the frantic pace of current radio programming.
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
This Mindless Thing (1990) (5:00)
The story of a 12 year old forced to show and be shown.
Reptiles and Wildfire(1989) (13:10)
Soundspaces of water, rain, and wild fire transport the listeners to
a place where "The Heat is heavy, but soft. And all that moves, moves
quietly." A dream-like piece of great sensual beauty and lyrical power
in which nature and reptiles and humans merge. "It's hot and wet. And
above my head I see mangrove, gumbo, limbo and cocoa plum. Where are
we?"
Created for the 1989 New Music America, Miami.
The Pleasure Of Ruins (1989) (14:20)
Begins with a haunting new age-style incantation of obliterated civilizations
-- a slow-paced voicing of ruins. Then, with closely-timed razor interruptions,
brief outbursts of sound are heard that increase in speed and density
-- and drive the work relentlessly forward until it becomes a ruin of
voices. An excellent example of conceptual art that expresses itself
with a highly sensual sound language.
Principia Schizophonica (1988) (6:40)
A lecture-demonstration on communication technologies and electronic
media, cut into radiophonic life.
escalated Ziggurat inhalation (1986-87)(4:35)
A reflection on the fate of language in the mouth of time.
Available on CD:
If a Voice Like, Then What? (1986-87) (2:20)
