Paper Radio

25/02/2021

Applause is a traditionally prominent aspect of live performance, and one of the key signs of a ‘live recording’ too. What are we really doing when we clap for someone or something?

How do other forms of support, like money, stand in for the presence or attention of an audience? And how is applause slowly drifting from the simple physical act of a person – people – clapping?

In a story written across the pandemic-driven silence of empty theatres and quick response digital arts programmes, this interactive exchange considers the small and large ways in which we crave to be observed, acknowledged and rewarded.

Read: https://www.darebinarts.com.au/exhibiting-culture-online/curator-xyz/emotional-support-animal-by-jon-thjia/

18/05/2020

The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas is launching its Signal Boost programme for emerging podcasters this week with an online event, hosted by Bethany Atkinson-Quinton, and featuring Helen Zaltzman, Daniel Browning, Jess O'Callaghan, Elizabeth Kulas, Becky Sui Zhen and Ivy Shih. 📻 on the 📺.

‘Where do you get your ideas?’ It’s a common question, asked of all kinds of writers and storytellers – and of musicians, artists, journalists. Their answers typically involve some combination of curiosity, hard work and practice. Often, a simple prompt or idea becomes the seed of something ...

15/04/2020

~

Writers and illustrators wanted for a project all about Victorian wildlife! - http://cityofliterature.com.au/about/opportunities-city-literature-office

28/03/2020

There's never been a better time to become one with the economy.

Paper Radio. Stories, tall and true, from Australia and New Zealand. A creative audio fiction and non-fiction podcast from Australia and New Zealand.

19/03/2020

Feeling isolated? Maybe you'll come out of it feeling 'the world is crisp, blooming and overflowing with texture', like Toby Fehily did in this story. (Funnily enough, introduced from a different kind of quarantine.)

Paper Radio. Stories, tall and true, from Australia and New Zealand. A creative audio fiction and non-fiction podcast from Australia and New Zealand.

06/03/2020

Hey bird

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04/12/2019

All the good waves

“Healthy coral reefs are remarkably noisy places — the crackle of snapping shrimp and the whoops and grunts of fish combine to form a dazzling biological soundscape,” said Steve Simpson, a marine biology professor at the University of Exeter.

02/12/2019

if you didn't make it to arts centre melbourne in november, these stories are now online! i'll admit i feel like a donk for tweeting that i was going to listen to a bunch on the weekend, only to have completely messed up my ears. ha. pay it forward ~
- jon

Listen to all the audio stories from the Melbourne season of A Mile in My Shoes

02/12/2019

hello! if you're an audio producer, and you have strong ideas about inclusion and craft, and you'd like to work a part-time week, there's a role going at the wheeler centre in melbourne. if you're not an audio producer, i'd love for you to spread the word! thank you! - jon

Melbourne’s home for smart, passionate and entertaining public talks on every topic. Across 200+ events each year, you’ll find our speakers sharing their

03/11/2019

'Eavesdropping is not only legal, it's ubiquitous – unavoidable … We cannot help but hear too much, more than we mean to. Eavesdropping is a condition of social life. And the question is not whether to eavesdrop, therefore, but how.'

Featuring contributions from Norie Neumark, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Susan Schuppli, Sean Dockray, Joel Spring, Fayen d'Evie, Andy Slater, Samson Young, Manus Recording Project Collective. Published by Liquid Architecture.

~ r e c o m m e n d e d · a c q u i s i t i o n ~ Perimeter Books

03/11/2019

For the next couple of weeks, you can slip on headphones and literally step into someone else's shoes. With the Melbourne iteration of this project pulled together by EP Camilla Hannan – and stories from Australia and the UK, made by producers including Camilla herself, Izzy Roberts-Orr, Sam Loy, Bec Fary, Jaye Kranz, Thanh Hằng Pham, Miyuki Jokiranta, Michelle Macklem, Eleanor McDowall, Bethany Atkinson-Quinton, Jon Tjhia, Anja Kanngieser and many, many, many more, you might want to bring a pair of cushy insoles.

Or, you know, just put the shoes on your head and lie on the grass.

Take a walk in someone else's shoes - literally.

03/11/2019

Check out Braided, the new Artful Dodgers Studios podcast – in this episode, Kaeleb Ngatai talks about being diagnosed with bipolar, and how it's helped him understand who he really is. Stick around for the interview after the episode.

Subscribe with iTunes Subscribe with spotify About a year and a half ago, Kaeleb Ngatai was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. He’s struggled with the ups and downs of depressed periods throughout his life, but this diagnosis put a new name to something that’s a part of him. Being diagnosed hasn.....

03/11/2019

'How is a business phone call like a folk song or jazz standard? How much are non-words, and part-words, involved in how we communicate? Is it possible to speak into the void; to use our voices to communicate nothing at all?'

Something new, for Constellations – a response to the prompt 'sight isolates, sound incorporates', from Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy. Adapted for headphones/earbuds from a four-channel installation in Toronto this August.

'While Ong argues that thought and expression have been fundamentally reconfigured by the technology of writing; Thing-Like suggests ways in which voice and speech have been reconfigured by the technology of money and how it structures time.'

It's a muscular mess. Enjoy! And when you're done, check out the rest of the series from the exhibition. Aliya Pabani's work is currently up on the feed, and it's excellent – even better, if you can believe it, than it was piped into four levitating foil balloons.

How is a business phone call like a folk song or jazz standard? How much are non-words, and part-words, involved in how we communicate? Is it possible to speak into the void; to use our voices to communicate nothing at all? In Thing-Like, Jon Tjhia has created a suite of 'exercises' – basically a

01/10/2019

Oh yeah. It's us.

Due to sound quality flaws in streaming and digital audio, one podcast aficionado now recommends listening to podcasts exclusively via vinyl records.

20/09/2019

BNE – saturday 5 october. please be! https://ima.org.au/ima-events/ima-talks-podcasting-listening-and-being-heard/

In conjunction with Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s exhibition Earwitness Theatre, Liquid Architecture and the IMA present a talk by Melbourne-based radiomaker, musician, and writer Jon Tjhia.…

20/09/2019

WLG – thursday 3 october. please come! https://citygallery.org.nz/events/tuatara-open-late-18/

This month: in a special LitCrawl taster session, writers offer their creative responses to the exhibition Eavesdropping.

10/09/2019

'… the power of this archive is in the way it seems to refuse the given grounds of representation available to the refugee. The recordings move against empathetic identification, preserving the opacity of difference. The moments of transparency and disclosure are complicated by the absence of an overarching narrative.'

in any kind of art – arguably, in any effort whatsoever – it's a rare and special honour to have people engage with your work in the way andrew brooks has here in runway journal. andrew responds to – really, writes alongside – how are you today, the artwork/archive jon worked on as part of the manus recording project collective, currently at city gallery wellington (and soon, beyond).

thanks to andrew, runway and the many other writers and journals who've given this work so much time and careful thought.

Comissioned by Runway Journal for Issue 39 Oceans, guest edited by Athena Thebus. Andrew Brooks is an artist, writer, editor, researcher, and teacher whose work takes the form of installations, videos, texts, sound recordings and objects. His work is interested in the regulation and mediation of bod...

10/09/2019

please come along!

Introducing Braided - a new podcast series produced in Collingwood by the Artful Dodgers Studios. Our lives aren’t straightforward and our stories ar...

21/08/2019

On now until 17 November at City Gallery Wellington – Eavesdropping addresses the capture and control of our sonic world by state and corporate interests, alongside strategies of resistance.

Jon's collaboration with Kazem Kazemi, Farhad Bandesh, Behrouz Boochani, Abdul Aziz Muhamat, Shamindan Kanapathi and Samad Abdul on Manus Island, and Michael Green and André Dao in Melbourne – as Manus Recording Project Collective – is once again part of the exhibition, this time presenting the expansive archive of 84 recordings (14 hours). There's a book and likely an event ahead, too – details forthcoming.

Please drop by if you're in Wellington, New Zealand. It's free and we'd love to know what you think. Heartfelt thanks to the curators (Joel Stern and James Parker) and the team at City Gallery for their continued support of the work.

Eavesdropping used to be a crime. 250 years later, eavesdropping isn’t just legal, it’s everywhere.

10/05/2019

facebook said that our fans hadn't heard from us in a while and we should post and let them know what we're up to. so – this one goes out to YOU!

04/04/2019

'By choosing to release material, do the men short circuit the constant surveillance they are under, or reinforce it? Does it reinforce an agency in what is known of the men — a reclamation of their public self that is mediated by the media? Or, to consider their always precarious position: what are the legal repercussions of speaking out when you are seeking refugee status? This work doesn't demand a performance of fact, truth, or witness.'
– Jacqui Shelton

Last year, you may recall, Manus Recording Project Collective (Farhad Bandesh Art, Behrouz Boochani, Abdul Aziz Muhamat, Samad Abdul, Kazem Kazemi, Shamindan Kanapathi on Manus Island; Michael Green journalism, André Dao and Jon Tjhia in Melbourne) created 'how are you today' – a 14-week-long daily upload of audio recorded by detainees on Manus Island.

It was part of Eavesdropping at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, curated by Joel Stern (Liquid Architecture) and James Parker (Melbourne Law School).

We've recently released the archive of these recordings online – 84 daily recordings, 14 hours in total.

Further reading:
• http://unprojects.org.au/un-extended/reviews/eavesdropping/?fbclid=IwAR3mL4VM33VlSfzZ-o0ylaEftlylHKC6pQitRCMFg_13q1xqUCeTucMq4yw
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/ce7ut26demq6zqp/wire-review.jpg?dl=0
• http://www.artandaustralia.com/online/discursions/eavesdropping-curated-joel-stern-and-james-parker?fbclid=IwAR3kENOFiUs4E1wPbeNCfdufWLHSYh-l58UWS6WRoAPQrH4JnDFfLOHoujo
• https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drawingroom/a-short-history-of-eavesdropping/10067300?fbclid=IwAR2wvrqYwJhiJjE8DlZfsbucC2mqEzOKvleJ4ZfSpj7GkBlyQ1ZD74nH3sk

“Speak­ing on a smug­gled phone from inside the Aus­tralian-run immi­gra­tion deten­tion centre on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, Abdul Aziz Muhamat related an anec­dote about his day. He’d been stand­ing near the gate when a secu­rity guard had called someone’s name three or four ...

11/03/2019

Very much looking forward to diving into Julia Barton's Spacebridge miniseries this weekend. Check it out on the Radiotopia Showcase podcast!

A weekly podcast magazine, 5 episodes selected by: Wilson

11/03/2019

Hey! New thing! If you're in the UK, 3pm tomorrow is when you can listen to a little experiment/game by Jon on BBC Radio 4's Short Cuts – alongside works by Joe Dunthorne, Imaginary Advice Podcast and John-Luke Roberts. Elsewhere? Catch it on the podcast soon after.

Many thanks to Falling Tree Productions, particularly Eleanor McDowall, and the many people who loaned their voices to this one.

Josie Long presents short documentaries inspired by Oulipian constraints.

20/12/2018

this is something jon works on when not working on noisy and quiet things. if you find yourself with time to read through the end of year break, please consider it!

Hat tricks, bags of tricks, missing tricks, turning tricks. Stuffed sleeves, old dogs, modestly skilled ponies – our idiom is riddled with tricks.

For this bumper edition of Notes, we've summoned writing about many forms of secret skill and trickery. Read it here: https://www.wheelercentre.com/notes/trick

Ivy Shih explores the surprising scientific afterlife of the Tasmanian tiger. Isabella Trimboli reflects on the utility of useless life hacks. Chris Somerville frets over his doppelgänger. Angelina Hurley testifies to real and unreal family miracles. And an anonymous theatre technician tells us what happens backstage at illusion and circus shows.

Plus, there's more on scams, stunts, hacks, marvels, miracles, superstition, cheating and double-dealing from our archives.

04/12/2018

In Melbourne, and a maker (current, lapsed, aspiring, etc) of podcasts or creative audio? We're going to be at this The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas event tomorrow night. And afterwards, downstairs at The Moat, a bunch of local nerds like you will be having a drink to mark the end of whatever 2018 was. You're invited too.

June Thomas is the senior managing producer of Slate podcasts – and if you’ve ever listened to a Slate podcast, you’re probably already familiar with her affable Northern English accent. Through her two decades on staff, Thomas has featured in the outlet’s popular ‘Gabfests’ (Culture, Po...

04/12/2018

Earth just made an intergalactic phone call.

Seismic sensors first picked up the event originating near an island between Madagascar and Africa. Then, alarm bells started ringing as far away as Chile, New Zealand and Canada. Hawaii, almost ex…

15/11/2018

Audiocraft is one of our very fave things in a year – a chance to really feel out the dark corners of our social anxiety whilst learning and sharing heaps about audio and radio-making, and coming away with more ideas than hangovers. It might even be the best, least pretentious audio festival/conference in the world! So – why don't you pitch 'em something weird, uncouth and troublingly unique to you?

An Australian radiomaker and podcaster organisation.

08/11/2018

oui we also have it on good authority ty

Melbourne’s home for smart, passionate and entertaining public talks on every topic. Across 200+ events each year, you’ll find our speakers sharing their

22/10/2018

Ice ice baby

Antarctic researchers have captured the sound of ice sheets ‘humming’, which may enable them to monitor changes from afar

09/10/2018

These are your final weeks to check out Eavesdropping at The Ian Potter Museum of Art in Melbourne! André Dao wrote about our sound work, 'how are you today', for The Monthly.

Audio messages from Manus Island reveal what it sounds like to live in limbo

04/10/2018

podcasts v a world always sounding

19/09/2018

Get your own!

Listening to creative radio and podcasts is often considered a secondary activity – something we might do in motion, submerged in a hot bath or lying in bed on the edge of dreams. Starting with the question: 'what might a cinema for collective listening be like?' Soundhouse: The Listening Body exp...

07/09/2018

'We dance to music but do we dance to spoken word?' This session on radio stories and movement closes the Barbican Centre's excellent Soundhouse: The Listening Body series – and we're very pleased that one of our pieces will be included.

Really, we're even more pleased that these questions are being asked – finally! – and wish we could experience the workshop first hand. If you make it along, please report back!

We dance to music but do we dance to spoken word?

07/09/2018

Read this really good, detailed review of Eavesdropping – by Jacqui Shelton for Un Projects – and then go check out the exhibition (details below). It's on until the end of October. http://unprojects.org.au/un-extended/reviews/eavesdropping/ :13

Eaves­drop­ping is a unique col­lab­o­ra­tion between Liquid Archi­tec­ture, Mel­bourne Law School and the Ian Potter Museum of Art, com­pris­ing an exhi­bi­tion, a public pro­gram, series of work­ing groups and tour­ing event which explores the pol­i­tics of lis­ten­ing throug...

22/08/2018

Stoked as crap to be involved with this project, from the brilliant, intrepid minds of Eleanor McDowall (Falling Tree Productions, Radio Atlas) and Nina Garthwaite (In The Dark), exploring 'a series of alternative visions for public listening environments' at the Barbican Centre.

(If you're in the Oo-Kay, fetch yourself a copy of the booklet, which includes a short bit o' writing by Jon.)

If you can donate a plane ticket or two from Australia, leave a note in the comments … k?

What might a cinema for audio look like?