The sounds and voices that are broadcast over the radio are an important part of the local identity in that area. Scanning through different frequencies you can hear local accents, music from the area, adverts for local businesses, and community stations, as well as national broadcasters. It’s a sonic portrait of the surrounding area.
Artist Elizabeth Walshaw is documenting and collecting the sounds on our airwaves and wants your help to record a one minute audio portrait of your local area. All of he recordings submitted will be pinned to an interactive map which will be accessible online. As FM radio transmitters are being gradually turned off around the world, replaced by digital transmissions, the project will document not only geographical locations, but also a technology on the verge of extinction.
Instructions:
– Find a quiet location, without too much background noise.
– Turn on your radio and switch it to FM.
– Place a recording device (e.g. the built in sound recorder on your mobile phone) near the speaker of the radio and start recording.
– Over the duration of approximately one minute, use the radio tuner to scan through all of the frequencies from lowest to highest. You will hear short clips of all the radio stations broadcasting within that area.
– When you have scanned through all the frequencies, stop the recording. You have just created a One Minute Portrait.
– Send the sound file to oneminuteportraits@gmail.com. In the email please state your name, the time and date that you recorded it, and the town and country you were in.
Here is an example of a radio portrait, recorded in Mainz, Germany on 16th April 2016 by Seda Demiriz:
Information on the artist:
I’m an artist living and working in Manchester, originally from Yorkshire. In summer 2016 I will graduate from MMU with a BA(HONS) in Interactive Arts.
For me, art is a tool to investigate everyday life. This means I do anything from using a handmade loaf of bread to investigate the value of labour, ‘reading’ a city through the graffiti on the walls, and creating sonic portraits of an area through FM radio signals.
I am one half of the team behind Slow Lunch, a social lunchtime meetup in Manchester School of Art that encourages students and staff to get away from their desks to enjoy food and meet new people.
I also present a weekly radio show, Since Records Began, on Hive Radio MCR.
You can see my website here.
One Minute Portraits 