Monday 5 May 2014

Sat 10 May - Bernadette Reed and Matthew Cook; the Cynon Valley Phurnacite Legacy

Poet Bernadette Reed talks about the Cynon Valley Phurnacite legacy.

Interview with Malcolm Cook, previous Phurnacite Plant worker and Founder Member of the PJAC (Phurnacite Justice Action Group).





 
Phurnacite Plant, Abercwmboi, Aberdare: The Phurnacite Plant (Coal Coking Works) was. This photograph is by Dai the Pitman.

Saturday 26 April 2014

Sat 3 May - Lara Pawson and the Poet David Briggs - focus on Angola

Lara Pawson discusses her new book 'In the Name of the People: Angola's Forgotten Massacre (IB Tauris May 2014). On 27th May 1977, a small demonstration against the MPLA, the ruling party of Angola - led to the slaughter of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people. These dreadful reprisals are little talked of in Angola today - and virtually unknown outside the country. 
The poet David Briggs reads specially commissioned new work and other poems. The Method Men (Salt, 2010) was shortlisted for the London Festival New Poetry Award. His second Rain Rider (Salt, 2013) is a winter selection of the Poetry Book Society.

Saturday 19 April 2014

Sat 26 April - SUDAN with James Copnall and soundart/filmtrack from Alexandra Sicotte-Levesque

James Copnall in the studio

James Copnall is the author of A Poisonous Thorn in our Hearts: Sudan and South Sudan's Bitter and Incomplete Divorce. He was the BBC correspondent for Sudan and South Sudan 2009-12, b...ased in Khartoum. He was previously the BBC correspondent for Ivory Coast and Morocco

and we shall also play an extract as sound art from Alexandra Sicotte-Levesque's film 'The Longest Kiss' - like her film on facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/TheLongestKiss



Sudanese woman standing in front of her shelter in the Zam Zam camp for internally displaced people in North Darfur. Photograph: Albert Gonzalez Farran/AFP/Getty

Friday 18 April 2014

Sat 19 April - Steve Moyes, Jude Cowan Montague and Daniel Defoe

Jude Cowan Montague and Steve Moyes re-imagine three books by Daniel Defoe
THE STORM
A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR
and
A TOUR THRO' THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN
 
 
Daniel Defoe is best known as the author of Robinson Crusoe (1719) but was also famous as a political pampleteer, and is often called the father of modern journalism
 
A TOUR THRO' THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN  is an account of his travels first published in three volumes between 1724 and 1727.
 
A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR is a fictionalised account of one man's experiences in the year 1665 and was published in 1722. Defoe was only five years old in 1665 and the book is probably based on the journals of his uncle, Henry Foe.
 
THE STORM is a pioneering work of journalism and science reporting. The first detailed account of a hurricane in Britain, the great storm of 1703, the book relates the events of a week-long storm that hit London on 24 November and reached its height on the night of 26/27 November 1703. Defoe placed newspaper advertisements to solicit personal accounts. Sixty of these were selected and edited by Defoe for the book which was published in 1704..

Sunday 6 April 2014

Sat 12th April, Artist Susana Sanroman with Jon Bird and the artist Martin Sexon

Susana Sanroman

Photographer and installation artist.

Susana Sanroman graduated in Photography from London College of Communication in 2008. Since then, she has been involved in several exhibitions as artist and curator. Susana is currently assisting international renowned photographer Tom Hunter and collaborating with international performance company New Opera Hero.

http://www.susanasanroman.com/


Jon Bird is a Professor of Art and Critical Theory at Middlesex University and also a member of the Visual Culture and Curating Research Cluster.
http://adri.mdx.ac.uk.contentcurator.net/bird-jon

He will discuss with Susana in the studio issues around abandoned, ruins and the derelict in art in western societies.


'Things we leave behind' by Susana Sanroman

Martin Sexton is an artist renowned for his investigations into esoterica and the outer limits of consciousness, creating sculptural works from billions of years old chunks of meteorite and films such as Indestructible Truth, which explore the psychoanalytical implications of UFOlogy and its relationship to ancient Buddhism.

http://www.martinsexton.co.uk/

Thursday 3 April 2014

Sat 5 April - Ice&Fire and Roisin Tierney

Ice&Fire Theatre Company talk about their new show, 'The Nine O'clock Slot' with Rob Edwards, Jude Cowan Montague and poet Roisin Tierney



“This slot’s the early slot, the no budget, no frills slot.  Low grade and high shame, the slot that no one wants.  Welcome, to the ‘The Nine O’Clock Slot’.”
Nine o’clock: the time of day that Councils bury the poor, the isolated, and the forgotten.  Funerals that no one attends.
ice&fire confronts the disturbing rise in the number of so-called ‘paupers’ funerals’ in modern-day Britain in this experimental piece that retraces the stories of four individuals buried in the same communal grave. The Nine O’Clock Slot is based on true-life accounts where heart-breaking stories find comic touches and uplifting conclusions.
Performed in the industrial underground spaces of the Red Gallery, the play takes you from the world of the living to the secretive world of the dead and dying. Fusing film, choreography and spoken-word poetry with skilled physical comedy and song-and-dance numbers, this is a totally immersive theatre experience.










Róisín Tierney was born in Dublin in 1963. Her poems have been widely published in magazines, anthologies and pamphlets.  She taught for several years in Spain (Valladolid and Granada), and Ireland (Dublin), and she is now settled in London. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies from Donut Press, Ondt & Gracehoper and Unfold Press. She has been placed in a number of national poetry competitions including the Brendan Kennelly Poetry Competition 2007, the Strokestown Poetry Competition 2006, the   in 2005 and 2002, and the 2001 TLS Poetry Competition. Her most recent pamphlet Dream Endings (Rack Press) won the 2012 Michael Marks Award and her debut collection The Spanish-Italian Border has just been published by Arc Publications.


Saturday 29 March 2014

Sat 29 March the News Agents

Here is the wonderful huzun track we played.

Really worth watching. Great musicians. Characterful video of them performing  in a home. Casual effortless enthusiastic passionate performances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZKvVDrNjdU

Friday 28 March 2014

Sat 29 March - Bruce Hamilton's original sound art piece

Hennecker's Ditch Fantasy" is an acousmatic text-sound composition
based on a poem by Katharine Kilalea. All sounds in the piece
originate from a recording of Kilalea reading her poem "Hennecker's
Ditch" in public.

My work is not a setting of the poem, or a depiction of events and
images in the text, but is rather a psychological reaction to
Kilalea's poem and an exploration of a sound world.

Voice, a cough, and ambient noise (including recording hiss) each play
integral roles, but it's the sound gestures within the poetry that
help form recurring musical motives, albeit often highly processed.
Some of the poem's words are intelligible but they are often
rearranged and multilayered.

Kilalea speaks of writing this poem over the course of an
anxiety-ridden year, and the ways in which she attempted to convey
emotions indirectly rather than describing them. In contrast, my
"Fantasy" was produced in a three-day immersion and is my own gut
response to the poem, abstract and similarly indirect. The piece
features shifting moods and tonalities as it plays with contrasting
degrees of clarity, frequency and space.


"Hennecker's Ditch Fantasy" was written for Jude Cowan Montague's "The
News Agents" radio program on Resonance FM (London).


American musician Bruce Hamilton composes and performs music in a
variety of genres. A professor at Western Washington University,
Hamilton organizes the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival and runs
the Spectropol netlabel. Hamilton lives in Bellingham, Washington with
composer Lesley Sommer and their son Miles.

Sunday 23 March 2014

Saturday 29th March Kate Kilalea, poet, discussing her own work and Orhan Pamuk's novels, and Robert Nickelsberg

Poet Kate Kilalea will read a selection of work and discuss themes and process and the work of prizewinning internationally renowned author Orhan Pamuk.


'Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 and grew up in a large family similar to those which he describes in his novels Cevdet Bey and His Sons and The Black Book, in the wealthy westernised district of Nisantasi. As he writes in his autobiographical book Istanbul, from his childhood until the age of 22 he devoted himself largely to painting and dreamed of becoming an artist. After graduating from the secular American Robert College in Istanbul, he studied architecture at Istanbul Technical University for three years, but abandoned the course when he gave up his ambition to become an architect and artist. He went on to graduate in journalism from Istanbul University, but never worked as a journalist. At the age of 23 Pamuk decided to become a novelist, and giving up everything else retreated into his flat and began to write.'

www.orhanpamuk.net


'Originally from South Africa, Katharine Kilalea moved to London in 2005 to study for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Her first book, One Eye’d Leigh was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize for writers under 30. She has received an Arts Council Award for poetry and her poems have appeared in publications including the 2010 Forward Prize Anthology, PN Review and Magma and performed on BBC Radio 3, as well as at festivals including the Wordsworth Trust Poetry Festival, Bridlington Poetry Festival and Worlds Literature Festival. A poem on chairs was commissioned for Martino Gamper's design book, 100 Chairs in 100 days and its 100 Ways. She works as a publicist for an architecture practice.' (from the Carcanet website)

Also, we will finally have Matteo Besana's interview with photojournalist Robert Nickelsberg.

'Robert Nickelsberg, a TIME magazine contract photographer for 25 years, was based in New Delhi from 1988 to 2000. During that time, he documented conflicts in Kashmir, Iraq, Sri Lanka, India and Afghanistan. He was one of the few photographers who had first hand exposure to the early days of the rise of fundamentalist groups in the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal areas and al-Qaeda, and his work provides a unique up close view of the Soviet withdrawal, the rise of the Taliban and the invasion by the U.S.
Nickelsberg moved to New York in 2000 and continues to travel overseas - reporting on the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 - and focus on chronicling the devastating psychological effects of war in Kashmir.
In 2008, he was awarded grants from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, and from the South Asia Journalists Association to document and report on post-traumatic stress disorder in Kashmir after 20 years of insurgency. Nickelsberg serves on the advisory board of the Kashmir Initiative at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University.' from Robert's website.

http://www.robertnickelsberg.com/

Saturday 22nd March - Steven Fielding on Utopia/Dystopia and Matthew Caley, poet

Professor Steven Fielding speaks about utopia and dystopia and dramatist representations in which politics is tackled through this alternative media. The show's first phoner.

Matthew Caley, poet presents poems and talks about his work-in-progress, The Rake. He reads a poem from his most recent published collection, Apparently (Bloodaxe).

Sound clips from two movies representing dystopia - The Planet of the Apes (1968) and Wall-E (2008)

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Sat 22 March - Robert Nickelsberg and Matthew Caley

Photojournalist Robert Nickelsberg speaks about his new book 'Afghanistan: A Distant War'  which gives a visual insight into the country's tumultuous modern history and discusses the challenges facing contract photographers documenting conflict.

http://www.robertnickelsberg.com/

Poet Matthew Caley discusses utopia/dystopia and gives a taster of work in development on the theme of 'the Rake'.

Saturday 15 March 2014

Sat 15 March - Jenny Lewis and Adnan Sayegh - upcoming workshop

Jenny Lewis and Adnan al Sayegh at the British Museum

 Writing Mesopotamia: performance


Sunday 27 April,
14.00–16.00
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Free, booking essential
 


Come to the British Museum for a unique public performance of works inspired by the history and culture of Mesopotamia and Iraq.
This includes readings from participants in the 'Writing Mesopotamia' series of creative writing workshops at the Museum, followed by a performance in English and Arabic by Iraqi poet Adnan al Sayegh and British poet Jenny Lewis, and a performance by renowned oud player Ehsan Emam.

Saturday 8 March 2014

Sat 15 March - Talking Mesopotamia with poets Jenny Lewis and Adnan al-Sayegh

The poet Jenny Lewis presents her forthcoming collection Talking Mesopotamia (Oxford Poets / Carcanet) with poet Adnan al-Sayegh.

Adnan al-Sayegh was born in al-Kufa, Iraq on the banks of the Euphrates River. One of the most original voices of the generation of Iraqi poets that came to maturity in the 1980s, his poetry denounces the devastation of wars and the horrors of dictatorship. Adnan has published ten collections of poetry, including the book-length Uruk’s Anthem (Beirut 1996) and won several international awards. Since 2004 he has been living in exile in London.

Adnan

Jenny Lewis’ published works include When I Became an Amazon (Iron Press, 1996/ Bilingua, Russia 2002), Fathom (Oxford Poets/ Carcanet 2007) and After Gilgamesh (Mulfran Press, 2011) a verse drama for Pegasus Theatre, Oxford. Her forthcoming collection Taking Mesopotamia (Oxford Poets/ Carcanet) expresses the revulsion and despair that ordinary people, especially women, feel towards war. She teaches poetry at Oxford University.

Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis is a poet, playwright, children’s author and songwriter who specializes in cross disciplinary work combining poetry with other art forms.
She first trained as a painter at the Ruskin School of Art before reading English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. She has published two books of poetry (When I Became an Amazon, Iron Press 1996 and Fathom, Oxford Poets/ Carcanet 2007) and has had several plays and poetry cycles performed at theatres across the UK including her verse drama, After Gilgamesh (for Pegasus Theatre, Oxford) published by Mulfran Press, 2011.

Thursday 6 March 2014

Sat 8 March - Interim Review


Jude Cowan Montague and Rob Edwards review the shows to date and look forward to what's to come. With original new art pieces, many commissioned for the show or coming out of collaborations between guests and other artists. Work from Steve Layton, Ash Cooke (aka Pulco), Hans Glib and more. Plus Jude reads her new ballad written in response to Rob's journalistic work on North Korea, based on the book recommended to her by journalist Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy.

Saturday 1 March 2014

Sat 1 March - John McKiernan and Platform 7, Professor Loretta Lees and Professor Andy Pratt

John McKiernan, founder of Platform-7 Events will be discussing public art interventions and contested space with Professor Andy Pratt (City) and Professor Loretta Lees (Leicester). The focus will be Platform-7’s art performa...nce interventions in Margate during 2011 mirroring the opening of the Turner Contemporary, an intervention about the politics of the videocassette in a disused Blockbuster Video store, closed following looting during 2011 riots in Catford, and an annual event that explores how people reach their opinion on conflict and war, which has taken place every Remembrance Week since 2009.

With sound art inserts from Nathan Harmer's Ext-1 (Blockbuster 2012 intervention), a section of Claire Ryohko Kohda Hazelton & Dean Wood's Claire & Dean play Tony & Dominic track (Margate 2011 intervention), Julian Jacobson's Prelude (no man's land 2012) and conclude with excerpts from GYBE 2012 album Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! on owning sonic space, directly inspired by the Montreal demonstrations in 2012.

www.platform-7.com

The essay, Art-led regeneration in Margate: learning from Moonbow Jakes Café and Lido Nightclub intervention by Professor Loretta Lees and John Mckiernan will be published in Art and the Public Sphere: Public Art and Accountability, March 2014





Platform-7
www.platform-7.com

Saturday 22 February 2014

Sat 22 Feb - with Jason Larkin, photographer and Sarah Clarke, lawyer

Jason Larkin in the studio to discuss his photographic series 'Tales from the City of Gold'.

"A city built on gold, Johannesburg was founded in 1886, when settlers and immigrants descended on the largest reef of the precious metal ever to be discovered. The area transformed quickly into a mining mecca. Within fifty years, over three hundred thousand people were working in gold mines across the city. This vast and rapid expansion reflected the increasing global thirst for gold as a commodity and helped fuel a government that changed South Africa."


DANIEL AND THE HUNTING DOGS
by Jason Larkin

Also on the show were poetical and musical responses to Jason's work. Jude Cowan Montague wrote a series of four poems responding to Jason's work. Two of these were set to music by American composer Steve Layton. A third was read live in the studio by Sarah Clarke. The fourth will be published at a future date.

Jim Goodin also created a music response to Jason's pictures. Jim Goodin is a composer/multi-instrumentalist from the US living in Brooklyn, NY. Goodin works with acoustic and electric instruments, loops and electronics. Find him on Soundcloud as JimGoodinMusic.


Lawyer Sarah Clarke discussed judicial review and changes to legal aid. She urged us to lobby our MPs to protest against the proposed withdrawal of legal aid for judicial review - the bill is going through parliament at the moment I believe. Find out more on the PLP website - http://www.publiclawproject.org.uk/

The Public Law Project (PLP) is a national legal charity which aims to improve access to public law remedies for those whose access to justice is restricted by poverty or some other form of disadvantage.Within this broad remit PLP has adopted three main objectives:
  • increasing the accountability of public decision-makers

  • enhancing the quality of public decision-making;  

  • improving access to justice.



Hosted and curated by Jude Cowan Montague

Wednesday 19 February 2014

Sat 15 February - The WILPF archives with Carys Lewis, archivist at LSE

Carys Lewis, archivist at LSE, has sent us this information about the
WILPF and FOR London Union archives talked about on the show on Saturday 15 February

 
The WILPF and FOR London Union archives can be accessed via the LSE Library Reading Room by appointment only. Details on how to access the reading room can be found here: http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/usingTheLibrary/accessingMaterials/readingRoomAccess/home.aspx

The catalogue of the WILPF archive is available to search through the LSE Archive catalogue, http://archives.lse.ac.uk/. The FOR London Union archive will be available to search later in 2014 once cataloguing is complete.

To find out more go to http://archives.lse.ac.uk/


WILPF world disarmament campaigner, c.1930-1932, WILPF/22/1

Monday 17 February 2014

Sat 22 Feb - Jason Larkin photographer, Sarah Clarke UK lawyer

Senior campaigning lawyer Sarah Clarke discusses judicial review and housing benefit law.

Photographer Jason Larkin talks about his work as a photographer of the margins of society in transition and on the edge. In particular we will talk about Jason's visual project exploring the fringes and working landscapes of Johannesburg, 'Tales from the City of Gold'. Jason's work sees multiple layers of past and present and represents them in arresting and technically convincing form.

www.jasonlarkin.co.uk

Sound art from American composer and musician Jim Goodin from the Sound In international community of improvisers

Poetry in response to Jason's photographs from Jude Cowan Montague.

Hosted and curated by Jude Cowan Montague

Saturday 15 February 2014

Sat 15 Feb - Swords into Ploughshares

Rob Edwards and guest archivist Carys Lewis discuss The Swords into Ploughshares Project at the archive of the London School of Economics. Its current project is to catalogue papers from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, London Union. . Plus two pieces of original sound art made specially for the show. One is based on the women’s peace organisation holdings at the archive and is a remote collaboration between Jude Cowan Montague and Steve Layton, an American composer. The other is a response to the recent floods in the UK and was recorded by Matt Armstrong and Jude Cowan Montague in their home studio in South East London.


The following extract is from the Swords into Ploughshares blog by Carys Lewis.

WILPF was formed in 1915 when over a 1000 women representing European and North American countries met in The Hague to protest against the war raging across Europe. Today WILPF has active members across the world who share a vision for peace by non-violent means and promote justice for all.
Delegates of the first WILPF meeting in The Hague, 1915
Delegates of the first WILPF meeting in The Hague, 1915
LSE Library received the first deposit of WILPF papers in 1973 and the organisation has continued to add to the records, the most recent deposit being made in 2012. In 2009 WILPF material which had been deposited at The Women’s Library was transferred to LSE re-uniting the archive.

Saturday 8 February 2014

Sat 8th Feb with Iain Overton the Director of Action on Armed Violence, Gale Burns, Jo Thomas

Pictures from the Resonance 104.4fm session today, Sat 8th Feb, The News Agents with Iain Overton the Director of Action on Armed Violence, Gale Burns, Jo Thomas and hosts Rob Edwards and Jude Cowan Montague






Saturday 1 February 2014

Saturday 1st February - Kirsten Irving, Mark Waldron, Rob Edwards, Ash Cooke

Today our special subjects were North Korea and poetry.
Our studio guests were the London based poets Mark Waldron and Kirsten Irving who read new works specially commissioned for the show and discussed news and poetry.
Kirsten interviewed Rob Edwards about his work investigating the North Korean community as a West London journalist.
The discussions and poetry readings were punctuated with sound art from Ash Cooke and Jude Cowan Montague. Two of these were pre-recorded and were studies of Jude's work-in-progress, The Wires 2012, an extended poem which deals with the international news stories of 2012. The third piece was a special commission from Ash Cooke for the show to which Jude improvised vocals live in the studio using words from the award winning book by journalist Barbara Demick of memoirs of North Korean exiles, 'Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea'.



Sunday 26 January 2014

Sat 25 Jan - When Reporters Cross the Line

This episode we were delighted to have as guests Stewart Purvis and Jeff Hulbert ‘When Reporters Cross the Line; the heroes, the villains, the hackers and the spies’.
The book’s publication coincides with the start of the trials in September of British newspaper executives on charges of phone-hacking and making corrupt payments to public officials.
His first book (written with his research partner Jeff Hulbert) is based on a BBC Radio 4 documentary which he made in 2011.It is the latest step in his career which is already wide-ranging across journalism, management and regulation.
A fascinating discussion was flanked by a live musical improvisation and composition by Howard Jacques. Howard was joined by Jude Cowan Montague who selected phrases on the spot in the studio from the book by Jeff and Stewart.
Howard brought an amazing array of percussion with bowls and floor frame to the studio. He is familiar to Resonance listeners as one of the three Bermuda Triangle Test Engineers. with Melanie Clifford and Nick Wilsdon.

Thursday 16 January 2014

The News Agents - Saturday 18 Jan - Shanshan Chen and Steve Moyes

Curated and hosted by Jude Cowan Montague and Rob Edwards
'Where news meets arts'
Guests are video artist and journalist Shanshan Chen and musician/composer Steve Moyes.
A heady mixture of discussion, sound art and music.
http://www.halfartist.com/artists/shanshan-chen.html
http://www.stevemoyes.org.uk/

Sunday 5 January 2014

Show 2: Theme TBC - 18 January 2014

Curated and presented by Jude Cowan Montague and Rob Edwards

Steve Moyes

Steve will create a music improvisation in response to news stories allocated to him in advance of the show

Show 1: Nuclear / Fukushima - 11 January 2014

Curated and presented by Jude Cowan Montague and Rob Edwards

Miyuki Kasahara
Calum F. Kerr

Miyuki Kasahara and Calum F Kerr will talk about their residency project ‘Rhône Nucléaire: the Folklore of Cultural Capital’ where in May 2013 they walked the ‘nuclear corridor’of the Rhone valley, France, and will then discuss attitudes to nuclear power in Europe and Japan.

Atsuko Kamura

A special musical interpretation of international news agency stories about the tsunami in Japan and its aftermath by Jude Cowan Montague

Saturday 4 January 2014

The News Agents Theme Tune - by Steve Moyes

The programme theme tune is written by experimental improvising musician Steve Moyes. He is a multi-instrumentalist whose main instruments are cello and electric guitar. He makes extensive use of electronics, live looping and computer processing.

Steve collaborates with a wide variety of musicians and artist in other media, including film, dance, live drawing/painting and spoken word.

http://www.stevemoyes.org.uk/

Rob Edwards and Jude Cowan Montague - the Anchors

About Us:

Jude Cowan Montague is an artist, historian and news archivist. She works on the Reuters collection at ITN Source. She is a poet and her debut collection, 'For the Messengers' responded to Reuters news stories in 2008 that she archived as part of her dayjob. www.judecowan.net

Rob Edwards is a political and cultural journalist working at Sheengate Publishing and on assorted freelance projects. He is also an author of modern history specialising in life stories and oral testimony, and an activist for housing, employment and social service. www.robertedwards.org.uk

Series 1 - Resonance FM - Sat 2.30pm-3.30pm

January 11th
January 18th
January 25th
February 1st
February 8th
February 15th