RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

sound characteristics for, besides the decibel level, sounds can also be present in the еаг and mind of the listener by virtue of their colour and other characteristics. Sounds аге edited by instinct, rather like a form of piloting. Exact measurement in transfer onto a four-track tape rarely yields the same results as аге obtained by hand-made editing. The use of comphcated equipment is only of real use in pre-mixing, when it acts as a шетогу bank. THE NEW RADIO PLAY The origin of the new radio play is probably to be found in Dadaism. In the mid-fifties, for example, representatives of the »Vienna Group« (composed of amateur enthusiasts from an experimental workshop with no connection with апу radio station or radio broadcast system), namely Gerhard Rhiim and Conrad Вауег, invented some sound games which were not given апу recogmtion for a long time by the conservative radio stations. However, time eventually proved these dreamers and engineers right. And it was the influence of science and engineering which was crucial in shapmg this vision of the world. As W. KUppert says, »It was their methods their way of thinking, their aesthetic distance and alienation which led to the breakdown of traditional ideas and forms through mspired games, engineering and science«. Concrete poetry and experimental Uterature аге extremely close to this genre. The Brechtian heritage can be sensed m it аИ. The Wnters no longer write for radio but by radio. They try to decode pohtical structures and reaUties as they аге: shattered and ahenated. A recent development in radio has been to introduce some ongmal sounds (O-sound) among existing voices and sounds proper. These аге m fact extracts from documentary recordings which serve to bmld up the social content of the »new radio play«. This sort of р ау is embodied in the creation of a new art m general, and especially ot a new multi-media art. The formation of a new genre outside what radio and the technical data of the studio offer is unthinkable. The followmg charactenstics clearly emerge;

The basis of the new radio play remains speech, but the traditional conception of speech is now lost. Ву the use of various permutadons speech is reduced to the level of concrete music. The new radio play comes in its procedure near to being a »feature« programme, for the »raw matenal« passes through all the phases of technical and dramadc »mihmg«. In many plays the word as a lingiusdc phenomenon has been imbued with the importance of action. Мапу dramas are rhymed time commentaries of associated sounds. VVnters аге examimng