International Perspectives on the Historic Intersections of Electroacoustic Music and the Radio Medium

Abstract

Radio studios including Club d'Essai de la Radiodiffusion–Television Française (Paris), Studio für Elektronische Musik (Cologne), BBC Radiophonic Workshop (London) and others have historically played a key role in the development of international approaches to electroacoustic music. Nevertheless few publications explore the pre-musique-concrète sound-based experimental works of the 1920s and 1930s arising from activities undertaken at radio studios, or the dimensions, properties, implications and impact of the radio medium itself. This article explores the impact of the radio medium on creative practice and argues that radio art is not inherently a subset of sonic art, as it may first appear when nuanced from electroacoustic music practice, but can be viewed as its own art form with idiosyncratic international standpoints and transdisciplinary properties. In addition to a historical discussion, this article offers an insight into the potential for radio art practice to cross-pollinate with music practice and explore new creative territory and hybrid working modalities.