2) The Nature of Radio

People and personalities existing only as voices. A reality of just sound. The way radio can permeate and mingle with the environs of the listener.

3) Rhetoric & the War in Iraq

The media was overflowing with rhetoric for war at the time, so too were reports of the deaths. We gathered and extracted statements from newspapers at the time, then recorded a boy (still struggling to read) reading these as script. The result was very odd.

In war either party can justify the death of another, the dead don't suffer, it is the children left behind.

I was struck by the number of boys during that period in time trying to come to terms with the death of their fathers in war and intermingled this with all those fathers also coming to terms with having their bodies vaporised and their physical life taken.

What if the essence of the person still exists and is left trying to come to terms with the sudden theft of his body!

Echo's of war are still bouncing round the electromagnetic spectrum... 

Commissioned Work:

A Speaker
By Thor McB in collaboration with Jeff Leo Sedgely

Commissioned By:

LIFT in collaboration with BBC Radio 3 sent an invitation to artists in Britain and around the world to create something for radio - inspired by simply a packet of seeds.

Realised:

The Packet of Seeds was originally broadcast on Sunday June 22 at 6.30pm on BBC Radio 3 and was also available online via BBCR3.

Further Info:

LIFT Commission: The broadcast is an exploration in sound of the creative process and how ideas develop and is part of LIFT ’s forthcoming season of work that explores the poetics and politics of London's urban landscape (2003).

A Speaker Ingredients:

1) Touching the Rock, by John Hull

An autobiographical account of a man gradually becoming completely blind. His descriptions of seeing through sound and the way people begin to exist to him through their voices alone. This inspired the notion of how this state of being would be if the sense of body and touch were removed, so only the voice existed.