KPFA-FM Music Dept. ➔ Radio Event: No. 11: Pronouncing Sentence, etc...

Analog Audio

Event Type

Intermedia and Visual Arts

Origin

KPFA

Identifier

RE.1970.10.07.c2

Program Series

Radio Event

Program Length

31 min

Dates

1970-10-08 | broadcast
| 1970-10-07 | created

Description

In this program, recorded in October 1970, Charles Amirkhanian introduces a selection of avant-garde readings and experimental theater performances. The program begins with a re-broadcast of “Pronouncing Sentence” from the KPFA Radio Event series of unique, audience participation broadcasts. In this instance Amirkhanian, invites the listening audience to join in the creation of a very personal piece of literature. Inspired by the cut-up writing style of William S. Burroughs and others, in which previously written texts are segmented and then recombined in a random fashion, Amirkhanian invites the listeners at home to combine the fragmented sentences that he reads on-air with some of their own choosing. Since there is no mechanism for those participating at home to read the resulting works back to Charles, the end product is indeed a very personal and unique work of collaborative art. This potentially collaborative work is then followed by an additional reading by Amirkhanian on the topic of an expanded definition of music. The program then concludes with a brief excerpt from an early work of experimental theater by Robert Ashley in which Anne Opie Wehrer, answers a series of tape recorded questions by Ashley.

Genres

Interactive Art
Sound poetry

Musical Selections

Pronouncing Sentence [fragments of sentences read over some pleasant background music] (8:12) / Charles Amirkhanian -- [a reading on music, read over surf sounds and music] (10:55) -- The Trial of Anne Opie Wehrer and Unknown Accomplices for Crimes against Humanity [excerpt] (1968) (4:15) / Robert Ashley

Performers

Charles Amirkhanian, speaker (Pronouncing ; reading)
Anne Opie Wehrer, speaker (Trial)
Robert Ashley, speaker (Trial)

Subjects

Participatory art
Interactive art
Audience participation radio programs
Cut-ups (Literary form)
Sound poetry
Text-sound compositions
Experimental theater

Related places

Berkeley (Calif.) (was recorded at)
Berkeley (Calif.) (was broadcast at)

Related Entities

Amirkhanian, Charles
Ashley, Robert, 1930-
Wehrer, Anne, 1929-2007