Open Air

Peter Strickland / Mark Wallinger / Christian Marclay / Susan Hiller / Ruth Ewan

Online (originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4)
25 March 2013 - 29 March 2013

Christian Marclay

Broadcast Monday 25 March 2013
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On Monday, at precisely 9.02am, in the grainy interstice between the Today programme and Start the Week, the airwaves suddenly filled with a jittery, sampled maelstrom of fragmented interviews, yawns, technical glitches, level checks and incongruous out-takes – John O'Mahony, the Guardian

Open Air was a series of audio artworks by five artists, broadcast to mark the launch of Open – a collaborative open call for ideas by Artangel and BBC Radio 4.

Each artist was given three minutes of airtime straight after the nine o'clock news. At a time when listeners would not be expecting to experience an audio artwork, the airwaves were disrupted each day of a working week. At 11am on the Saturday that followed, there was an omnibus broadcast featuring all five pieces plus interviews with the artists. 

Christian Marclay

Christian Marclay is known for his work The Clock (2010), a 24-hour-long looped video collaged from scenes of clocks from films and television programmes that functions to tell the time. 

The first in the series of interventions, Marclay's work is another feat of crafted montage-making. Familiar Radio 4 voices combine and compete in not-so-familiar ways.

This work was originally broadcast at 09:02 Monday 25 March 2013 and is also available to listen to on Soundcloud and on BBC Radio 4's website. The full series is available as a playlist. 

 

Ruth Ewan

Broadcast Tuesday 26 March 2013
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Ruth Ewan

"There are no schools, but we are all educated." Teenage ideas of utopia comprise Ruth Ewan's How We Might Live, a monologue read by Sir John Tusa.

This work was originally broadcast at 09:02 Tuesday 26 March 2013 and is also available to listen to on Soundcloud and BBC Radio 4's website.

Peter Strickland

Broadcast Wednesday 27 March 2013
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Peter Strickland

As 2012's Beberian Sound Studio made evident, filmmaker Peter Strickland is fascinated by the ways in which the sounds can be manipulated and transformed. From the homely mantra of the Classified Football Results, we enter strange new sonic territories.

This work was originally broadcast at 09:02 Wednesday 27 March 2013 and is also available to listen to on Soundcloud and on BBC Radio 4's website.

Susan Hiller

Broadcast Thursday 28 March 2013
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Susan Hiller

This disorientating dispatch from Susan Hiller's foreign correspondent describes the spaces between dreams and reality.

This work was originally broadcast at 09:02 Thursday 28 March 2013 and is also available to listen to on Soundcloud and on BBC Radio 4's website.

Mark Wallinger

Broadcast Friday 29 March 2013
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Mark Wallinger

The words of Oscar Wilde's aesthetic manifesto take on a new meaning in the week's final piece from Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger.

This work was originally broadcast at 09:02 Friday 29 March 2013 and is also available to listen to on Soundcloud and on BBC Radio 4's website.

Press

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At first i thought Radio 4 was broken. – Will Matthews, listener comment on the BBC blog

Selected Press

On Monday, at precisely 9.02am, in the grainy interstice between the Today programme and Start the Week, the airwaves suddenly filled with a jittery, sampled maelstrom of fragmented interviews, yawns, technical glitches, level checks and incongruous out-takes – all spliced together by artist Christian Marclay. – John O'Mahony, the Guardian, 28 March 2013
[...] short, visceral bursts of sound art each morning for a week – glitchy, indecipherable interviews by Christian Marclay played on one day, radio static from Peter Strickland on another. – Peter Yeung, Apollo Magazine, 15 September 2015
The broadcast has been sanctioned but not produced by the station, which has bravely handed over artistic licence to Artangel and the artists. The list of leading artists who have agreed to the challenge – from Susan Hiller, to British filmmaker Peter Strickland – promises that, whatever happens, the accumulated 15 minutes of air time will be used innovatively. – Florence Waters, The Telegraph, 25 Mar 2013
At first i thought Radio 4 was broken. Then I thought it was trying to say something. I couldn't tell if it was hackers or aliens. – Will Matthews, listener comment on the BBC blog, 30 March 2013

Credits

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Who made this possible?

Credits

Commissioned by Artangel and produced by Russell Finch and Joby Waldman. A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. Artangel is generously supported by Arts Council England, and by the private patronage of The Artangel International Circle, Special Angels, Guardian Angels and The Company of Angels.

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