Radio Havana Cuba: spectral formation

"When we hear our own voice, we are already separated from that moment in which we spoke. As we pay attention to listening, we thicken the "now" with recollection, anticipation, and imagination. When we speak on the radio, our voice is further extended out through medial spacetime to receivers that we cannot even know are there. Radio is an act of trust, a gift... as is all language. But in radio the spectral presence of speech is enacted explicitly. Shortwave voices are heard as revenants of the radio frequencies, returning and returning again to haunt places they have never been, connecting moment to moment in an already-present remembrance, an already-remembered present.

The source material is a transmission on Radio Havana Cuba, 2 August 2017, recorded by Anthony Messina."

Composition by Robin Parmar. 

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave