Workshop by Manuel Cirauqui

On the trails of the program Thanatophonics, presented at Mugatxoan in February 2012, this workshop will offer a practical and theoretical exploration of radiophony as a field of encounter for subjectivity and its phantoms. Since the times of its creation in the late 19th century, radio has proven to be the scene par excellence of sound disembodiment. The parting of the voice from the body, resonance, the return of the dead, and auditory hallucination are phenomena which radio, like no other medium, has helped to document. The workshop Maniobras Espectrales en la Radio [Spectral Maneuvers on the Radio] will take on three related levels: narration, the construction of sound, and broadcasting. The first session will provide a detailed survey of some of the most eminent cases of phantom appearances on the airwaves, through the history of spirit voices, the investigations of Konstantin Raudive, William Burroughs and Mike Kelley, among others, and the poetics of Jean Cocteau and Ezra Pound. The second and third sessions will be devoted to the fabrication and broadcasting of thanatophonic material by means of various sound production/recording devices, using Mugatxoan's temporary station and its surroundings as a testing field. Beyond the ironic or caricatural replication of certain inexplicable anomalies in sound, the aim of these working days will be to critically map a spectral territory: a space for non visible projection and performance, radio being the theater of a split consciousness haunted by multiple echoes.