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Radiostation: CBC - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Producer: Mario Gauthier

Artist: Jocelyn Robert

Time of participation: ...


some reflexions on the "artistic" aspect of the project...

The "conference as a metaphor" seems a very good one to me. And the conversation you had with Andrew McLennan (Australia) about the apparent interest in a focus on language-based work, and his own questions with the content of the event link directly with my own preoccupations.

It seems to me that one of the main subject we are addressing is "distance" :
in its geographical meaning, but also - and mainly ?- in its cultural meaning.

It would be a strange idea to do all this only to bring together people that are already close to each other... And the conference metaphor is still working here : we try to have people with different points of view, different backgrounds, (i.e."distant" people), so we can construct something out of the different parts brought by everyone.

A conference is usually stronger when there is a focus that is outlined from the start. It would seem to me a good idea to make sure that people coming at the conference aggree on what kind of construction we are planning...

After some discussions here about how we can bring out the "distance" aspect in this exchange , and how it can be transmitted to the listener, we came with the idea that there could be a mecanism of distance-into-time translation... Here is a example of how it could work. There could be a common starting point, (a theme ? a text ? a concept ? a picture ? a theory ?) that is the same for everyone to start from. Then, receiving things from the others would add to our own thought and actions. We could ourselves add to it or choose to leave it as it is for broadcasting here. And the listener would sense the distance (both the geographical and cultural) throughout the hours or the whole day, in that the audio content would evolve through the cultural filtering and the technical filtering.

If we do not start from something in common, how can we feel the differences ?

That is the state of our reflexions right now. We are thinking that it would be a good idea -for us- to broadcast in an on/off pattern (something like 5 minutes every hour for twelve hours, maybe ?) so that the evolution of the distance and culture filtering would be felt all day by the listeners.

So, it could be something like this : Everybody agrees on a starting point. We -each in his/her own country- first broadcast our own idea of it. Then, listening to what everbody else is sending us, we either prepare a new thing or decide to broadcast directly what we received, this other idea of the same thing. Then, since we receive other interpretations of the interpretations, we go on with the "discussion" in the conference and with our own idea evolving through what others think and do, growing out together our differences. And the listener would feel this evolution or "de-volution".

I am sorry if this is still not clear. I guess we are all trying to see what we can do with this wonderful opportunity to contact and work together.

Please make this available to the others : if two or three would be interested in this approach, it would be enough to start a "conference" and we could then plan our own participation schedule.

Thanks

Jocelyn Robert - ( 7-Mar-1995)


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