Part I: The poetics of the radiophonic neo-avant-garde
1 Transnational, untranslatable: Apollinaire in Freddy de Vree’s multilingual radiophonic composition A Pollen in the Air – Lars Bernaerts
2 Radiophonic art and electroacoustic music: an aesthetic controversy during the establishment of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the radiophonic poem Private Dreams and Public Nightmares – Tatiana Eichenberger
3 A forefront in the aftermath? Recorded sound and the state of audio play on post-‘golden age’ US network radio – Harry Heuser
4 Croaks and calls: posthuman sound ecologies in the neo-avant-garde – Jesper Olsson
5 Textual and audiophonic collage in Dutch and Flemish radio plays – Siebe Bluijs
6 ‘Ja, ja, so schön klingt das Schreckliche’: an audionarratological analysis of Andreas Ammer and FM Einheit’s Lost & Found: Das Paradies­ – Jarmila Mildorf
Part II: The acoustic neo-avant-garde between theatre, music and poetry
7 Poetry on the Austrian radio: sound, voice and intermediality – Daniel Gilfillan
8 Gerhard Rühm's radiophonic poetry – Roland Innerhofer
9 A theatre of choric voices: Jandl and Mayröcker’s radio play Spaltungen – Inge Arteel
10 Language, sound and textuality: Caryl Churchill’s Identical Twins as neo-avant-garde (radio) drama – Pim Verhulst
11 Studio audience: Glenn Gould’s contrapuntal radio – Adam J. Frank
Index

From the postwar period on, radio has functioned as an important site of artistic experimentation, particularly through the form of the radio play and related acoustic genres. The ‘neo-avant-garde’ has demonstrated a strong and enduring interest in aural media, rooted in an appreciation of the seemingly autonomous power of sound and voice.

This is the first in-depth study of radio’s significance for the neo-avant-garde. Examining a wide range of artists and writers from across Europe and North America, itlooks closely at how they have explored the creative possibilities of radio and the semiotics of auditive storytelling through electro-acoustic manipulation, stereophonic positioning, montage and mixing. At the same time, it probes the question of how they have experimented in related genres and media such as music, sound poetry and theatre. The book also reflects on intermedial and material issues, analysing how they have impacted artistic production in different parts of the world.

Featuring chapters on Ernst Jandl and Friederike Mayröcker (Austria), Åke Hodell (Sweden), Glenn Gould (Canada), Caryl Churchill (UK) and more, Tuning in to the neo-avant-gardeis essential reading for students and scholars working in the fields of radio, literature and theatre, media studies and intermediality.