Catalogue of Mourning
These two pieces were once a single entwining of real and imagined stories conjoined at the surf’s edge. Pulled apart, they offer two dissections, making up a catalogue of mourning—one, an impressionist narrative; the other a non-narrated documentary.
Ligature
A conceptual love story, this is an imagined conversation loosely based on the lives of Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins born in the UK in 1911. The Hiltons were displayed famously in circuses in Europe as children and toured the U.S. sideshow, vaudeville and burlesque circuits in the 1920s and 1930s. They’re retired now. They whisper themselves to sleep while conjuring what death will feel like when it comes to them both. There’s a ghosted imprint of mourning of those attached to us, whether by our own sinew or the withered wings of dead seabirds. Their single knotted torso extends beyond immediate relationship out to the world.
This Beautiful Carcass
On a desolate beach in Northern California’s Humboldt County, a marine biologist and a citizen scientist troll for bird carcasses, inadvertently finding beauty and, perhaps, answers about the ocean’s warming waters.
radio festivals
Datscha Radio: A garden in the air – Nightgardening
Live radio festival, held in a back-yard garden, Berlin, 2019
(features Ligature)
Radiophrenia:
A temporary art radio station (features Ligature)
Centre for Contemporary arts, Glasgow, Scotland, 2017
podcast + online
Radio Compost, a radio/podcast project that focuses on acoustic ecology, seeking sounds of changes in the environment, 2019
(This Beautiful Carcass)
Long Live the New Sound, a podcast for makers and listeners to share and hear work that experiments in sound, 2018 (Ligature)
Right-Ear Dominant (Ligature, 3-minute version)
Earlid, Spring 2017
“Audiophile: Joan Schuman,” Public Radio Remix at PRX
curated hour of nine pieces, posted by Emily Corwin, Jan. 12, 2011
art @ radio, 2009
radio broadcast
Wave Farm Radio Art Archive, selected as entry for ongoing collection of radio artistry, Karen Werner, Radio Art Fellow / 2020 (Ligature)
KZYX-FM, Mendocino Public Radio – 2013 (This Beautiful Carcass)
Flotation Device – KBCS-FM, Bellevue, WA – 2009 (Ligature)