why radio?

because


when i narrow-cast alone on the mic, with a receiver not far, in the public space, and i hear my voice twice,
radio singularly and tangibly gives me the sensation that i exist. if i start to voice my vulnerability at that point, my heart opens, i feel a seed of communing with the human in us and i get a glimpse of what it is to feel equal to others. if i can look at you and see our mmortality at this moment, then i come back to my body and feel that we are equal and it is so obvious that i can only laugh at how absurdly we live.


when broadcasters and listeners are at sight distance,
radio creates a tension between intimate listening and physical distancing. it creates a particular type of safe intimacy.


when compared to the typical art container of a "performance",
radio adds freedom between performers/broadcasters and audience/listeners. listeners can switch their receiver on and off. broadcasters have no way to know who is really listening; their bodies get way less information from other bodies, since the listeners are at distance, and they can thus focus on their content. radio then is a physical manifestion of the impossibility to control meaning making.


when you are on the microphone and voice your vulnerability,
i feel i am with you, although separated, and in full respect, with no impulse to paternalistically take care of you, as if radio was taking care of both of us, embracing the moment.


radio is a malleable and quite accessible medium (i acknowledge that it is not the case for deaf people).


radio provides a sense of relation to the unknown, with infinite time (radio waves are theoretically travelling for ever).