Radio Future Past

As part of a residency at the Kuvataideakatemia / Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in May 2025, Sam Dolbear wanted to work through a book about early avant-garde radio techniques in the Soviet Union written by Miguel Molina Alarcón and translated into English by Deirdre MacCloskey. For the first period, Sam will listen to a radio work once a day and make notes on it from the book.

Wednesday – 7 May
Velimir Khlebnikov, The Radio of the Future, 1921

You can hear singing, wind, bells, bird song, planes, a spring quartet.

From Miguel Monila Alarcón's book: "Khlebnikov was a writer, artist and poet, also interested in mathematics, history, mythology and ornithology (he wrote an article about the cuckoo), A key artist in Russian cubo-futurism, he was constantly searching by way of verbal experimentation, writing toward the utopia of a "stellar" universal language. "The Radio of the Future" is an essay written at the end of his life anticipating the possibilities of the new radiophonic medium (radio first started broadcasting in Russia in 1922). He conceives radio as a "central tree consciousness" or "a great wizard and sorcerer" which, with its waves, would "unite all mankind". He saw the radio station as "a spider's web of lines" or "the flight of birds in springtime" which reveal the "news from the life of the spirit". In the hands of artists, this new medium would transport and project ideas instantly to the "unknown shores" of all humanity. Khlebnikov imagined that they could make "Radio-Books", "Radio Reading-Walls", "Radio-auditoriums" (" a concert stretching from Vladivostock to the Baltic"), "Radio and Art Exhibits", "Radio Screens" and "Radio Clubs" ... where you could see and hear everything from the tiniest sound of nature to major events in the "exciting life" of cities. He understood that with this there would be a communication between the artist's "soul" and the people: "the artist has cast a spell over his land; he has given his country the singing of the sea and the whistling of the wind. The poorest house in the smallest town is filled with divine whistlings and all the sweet delights of sound." This capacity of Radio led him to see it as "The Great Sorcerer" capable of transmitting even "the sense of taste"; people would drink water feeling that they were drinking wine; or smell: a Radio station "would give" the nation, for example, "the odour of snow" in the middle of spring. It would also be a "Doctor without medicine" curing from a distance by means of "hypnotic suggestion". And Radio could also transmit sounds to facilitate the work of the harvest and construction by emitting certain musical notes, "la" and "ti", which would help "increase muscular capacity" in the workers. Another of the Radio's great qualities would be the organization of popular education through radiophonic classes and lectures."

Thursday – 8 May
Ivan Ignatyev & Ego-Futurists Group, The First Spring Concert of Universal Futurism, 1912

You can hear voices, bells, pipes, winds.

From Miguel Monila Alarcón's book: "The Ego-Futurists organized "banquets & soirées", combining sophisticated products (such as "Crème-de-Violettes" liqueur) with refined poetry recitals ("poesas"). It was their way of protesting against the intolerant petit-bourgeois public who rejected the excesses of the Italian Futurists, while getting excited listening to the works of Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky or Saint-Saens. For May 1912, through the Petersburg Herald, they programmed a "poeso-concert" announced as "The First Spring Concert of Universal Futurism" which was to be performed at midnight in the suburbs of St Petersburg in the park next to Paul the First's Hunting Palace. This event included, alongside the recital of poems, "Pavilions of Seclusion, of Ego-books, of Milk and Black Bread", a "Chalet of Cupid" and an exquisite buffet of "Wines from the Gardens of Prince Yusupov", "Crème-de-Violettes" liqueur, "Gatachino Pink Trout", "Fleur d'Orange Tea" ... The park was to be decorated with "lilac illumination" and there were to be "aeolian bells, invisible ocarinas and pipes" (partly included in this recording). It was from these elements that this recording was made since these were the effects that would supposedly have been heard had the event taken place - because in the end the "poeso-concert" was cancelled due to the bad weather in May 1912, and because of disagreements with the management of the Petersburg Herald who finally decided to replace the event with a publication instead. The event was organized by the ego-futurist Ivan Vasilyevich Ignatyev (1892-1914) and was to include Igor Severyanin, I.V. Ignatyev himself, Constantine Olimpoz, and I. S. Lukash. After the exclusion of Severyanin, Ignatyev - the new leader of the ego-futurists - had created an "Intuitive Association" in whose "Charter" he claimed: "God is nature. Nature is Hypothesis. The Egoist is an Intuitive. An Intuitive is a Medium". Thus we understand why this futurist concert was organized for the start of spring: Ignatyev said that the Russian bisyllabic word "Vesna" (Spring) contained the essential and spatial meaning of the arrival of spring, with the phonetic of the letter "s" ("an impression of sunniness") and the "a" ("joy of attaining the long awaited"). With such examples Ignatyev defended various senses in poetry: colour, sound, taste, touch, weight and spatiality, thus "poeso-concert" evenings with food, drink, sounds, colour and poems were another way of carrying forward a "Universal Futurism" experience, and of bringing together all the sensations at the height of spring. But those experiences were not to last long. Ignatyev committed suicide in 1914, two days after his wedding. From that moment the Ego-Futurist group collapsed."

Friday – 9 May
Konstantin Melnikov, Sonata of Sleep, 1929–30

You can hear wind, water, thunder, birdsong, Debussy.

From Miguel Monila Alarcón's book: "Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov (b. Moscow 1890 – d. Moscow 1974), painter and architect, is considered the most important figure in Russian constructivist architecture. After the 1917 Revolution, he taught at the Vhutemas school, drawing up a new urban plan for Moscow and designing worker's clubs outside the city. Melnikov's wish was that revolutionary soviet social values could be expressed in his buildings, although at the same time he publicly defended on many occasions "the right and need for personal expression", which he claimed as the only source of "delicate design". His projects were unpredictable, unusual and ultra-original, described at times as "unreal and fantastic" , even though most of them were realised. Melnikov followed the path of the organic combination of space with simple volumetric form, thinking of his architecture as "transparent walls" and putting the facades in second place. In 1929-30, he planned his "Green City", a city of rest in the green area of Moscow, with the aim of rationalizing rest by means of the "rationalization of sleep" in socialist cities, and in "daily life". For this city, he conceived green areas with a forest, gardens and orchards, a zoo, a children's city and a public sector, with a train station-concert hall, "solar pavilion" and "sleeping quarters" (which were the rest blocks for the workers). These dormitories had to be built by a collective, bringing together the efforts of different specialists, amongst others architects, musicians and doctors. For Melnikov, sleep was a curative source, more important than food and air. He wanted to fit out the dormitories with hydromassage; thermal regulation of heat and cold by means of stone stoves; chemical regulation with the aroma of forests, spring and autumn; mechanical regulation with beds that rotated, rocked and vibrate and finally, sonic regulation by means of "the murmuring of leaves, the noise of the wind, the sound of a stream and similar sounds from nature" (including storms), all of which would be heard by placing special sound horns at opposite ends of the dormitories. These would also reproduce symphonies, readings and sound imitations. Melnikov planned to replace bothersome "pure noise" (showers, washbasins, neighbours, conversations, snoring...) with "organized noises" based on the principles of music. Melnikov named these "sleeping quarters", and their concerts "Sonatas of Sleep" (SONnaia SONata in Russian), taking the Russian root SON ("Sleep") and using the play on words to allude to the famous Claire de Lune Sonata (Lúnnaya Sonata) by Claude Debussy. In the end, this project was never realised, nor was his dream of creating "The Institute for the Transformation of Humankind". In 1937, Melnikov was labelled a "formalist" and removed from education and practice and, although he managed to survive the Stalinist purges, he was never rehabilitated and had to work as a portrait painter on commission until his death in 1974. For the reconstruction of this "Sonata of Sleep" the natural sounds that Melnikov refers to in his texts have been used; it also includes a musical fragment of the Claire de Lune Sonata by Debussy, recorded in 1916 on a mechanical Piano Roll. With this project, we can consider Melnikov as an antecedent of "acoustic design", and also of the concepts of "sound ecology" and "sound landscape" which appeared again in the '70s."

Monday – 12 May
Dziga Vertov, Radio-Ear / Radio-Pravda, 1925

You can hear a train, a cuckoo, announcers, screaming, steam engines, singing, tapping, humming.

From Miguel Monila Alarcón's book: "In Dziga Vertov's ambition to "explore life", the latest technical inventions arising from the industrial revolution were employed with the intention both of "discovering and revealing the truth", and placing a revolutionary weapon in the hands of the workers. All this led him to create the Kino-eye ("what the eye cannot see"), Radio-Pravda (or "radio-truth") and Radio-ear ("I hear"). Through radio, he attempted to establish auditory communication across the whole of the world's proletariat by way of recording the sounds of workplaces and of life itself, captured without preparation (a kind of 'factory of facts'). These would subsequently be broadcast across a network of radio stations, making possible the mutual "listening" and "understanding" of all workers, regardless of their cultural origins. All these ideas were expressed in his manifesto "Radio-Pravda" (1925):

We defend agitation by facts, not only concerning sight, but also and in the same measure, concerning hearing. How could we establish an auditory relationship across the whole frontline of the world's proletariat? (...) Once organised and set-up, the presentation of any sound recording may easily be broadcast in the form of Radiopravda. It is therefore possible to establish, in all the radio stations, a proportion of radio-dramas, radio-concerts and news 'taken directly from the life of the peoples of different countries. Something that acquires fundamental importance for radio is the 'radio-journal - free of paper and distance (Lenin) - rather than broadcasting Carmen, Rigoletto, romances, etc., with which our radio-broadcasting began. (...) Against 'artistic cinema', we oppose Kino-Pravda and Kino-eye; against 'artistic broadcasting', we oppose Radio-Pravda and Radio-Ear. (...) And it will not be through opera or theatre representations that we will prepare. We will be intensely ready to offer proletarians from all countries the possibility of seeing and hearing the whole of the world in an organised manner. Of being mutually seen, heard and understood."

Dziga Vertov was not heard in his day and was not able to put these ideas into practice, although in 1925 he did make a silent film: "Radio Pravda" (n° 23 in the series "Kino-Pravda" Newsreel) of which less that a third has been preserved, showing, in a didactic way, the potential of the new medium, and his interest in using it - or perhaps in moving into it? It would be necessary to wait a few more years for his film "Enthusiasm! The Dombass Symphony" (1930) when these ideas would finally be realised – in this we see a radio tuning in to the Leningrad RV3 station to hear the sounds produced by the workers and by the mines and machinery of the industrial region of Dombass in the Eastern Ukraine. Vertov also uses sounds generated by radiophonic media itself and includes "the rhythm of a radio-telegraph" in some parts. All these sounds had been recorded on site, using a specially built mobile recording system (the "Shorin system") and subsequently edited – by cutting, on film, since there was no other means of sound editing available. For the radiophonic reconstruction of "Radio-Ear/Radio-Pravda", included in this recording, the sounds of the film were used and edited as a "factory of facts" to recreate the radiophonic project. Vertov's ultimate aim was to create a "Radio-Cinema Station of Sound Production and Recording" (recording and retransmission of sound images at a distance) in order to equal and surpass the technical and economic power of capitalism."