Image at top of page courtesy Helicotrema Recorded Audio Festival 2019
Inside The Department of Ultimology Radio Essay
This radio essay was produced by RTÉ's Drama On One with Kevin Brew and supported by the Broadcast Authority of Ireland, and broadcast twice on RTÉ in 2019. On November 6th 2019 an excerpt from the radio essay was presented at the Helicotrema Recorded Audio Festival at Palazzo Grassi and Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy.
Ranging across multiple disciplines, the radio essay explores history of art, communications technologies, linguistics, the climate emergency, the history of disease and personal stories. It features an original score by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and contributions by Isabel Nolan, Luna Dolezal, Jessica Foley, Ross Perlin, Dora Vargha, Laura Nsengiyumva, and Salim Kajani.
The essay is scripted by Fiona Hallinan and Barry Edward Fitzgerald, narrated and directed by Fiona Hallinan and Kate Strain and produced by Kevin Brew, with sound design by Damian Chennells and Ciarán Cullen.
The hour-long feature was broadcast in the RTÉ Drama On One slot (Sundays 8pm, RTÉ Radio 1) on 6th October with a repeat broadcast on 10th November to coincide with RTÉ's week-long focus on the climate emergency.
Inside The Department of Ultimology is available to stream online at https://www.rte.ie/culture/2019/1002/1080706-drama-on-one-inside-the-department-of-ultimology/
Helicotrema Audio Arts Festival
Wednesday 6 November 2019
Palazzo Grassi and Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy
The Department of Ultimology was invited to participate at Helicotrema Audio Arts Festival in Venice. On November 6th 2019 a 10 minute excerpt of our original radio essay, 'The Department of Ultimology,' produced by RTÉ's Drama On One and supported by the Broadcast Authority of Ireland, was presented at the festival.
Helicotrema is a non-profit festival initiated in 2012, that presents a program of recorded audio pieces. Inspired by the early decades of radio broadcasts, it investigates different forms of collective listening.
The festival proposes a series of sound paths comprising sound works, audio plays, audio documentaries, soundscapes, experimental poetry and various formats based on the acoustic component.
Helicotrema borrows the format of a film festival, replacing the film screening with a program of listening sessions. This program aims to create site-specific situations, experimenting how the listening experience can be enriched and influenced by different contexts.
Over the years the festival has travelled in several Italian cities, thanks to the collaboration with numerous institutions that deal with art, theater and contemporary music such as MACRO, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rai Radio3 (Rome, 2013); Viafarini / Careof / DOCVA, Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Istituto dei Ciechi (Milan, 2014); Osservatorio di Arcetri, Museo Marino Marini (as part of Sonic Somatic festival in Florence, 2015); AtelierSi (Bologna, 2015); Centrale Fies (as part of World Breakers – XXXVI edition of Drodesera festival in Dro, 2015); CLOG, Progetto Diogene, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Laboratorio del Dubbio (Turin, 2016); Microclima, Eventi Arte Venezia, Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana and Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Venice, 2012-2017).
The festival is curated by art collective Blauer Hase (Mario Ciaramitaro, Riccardo Giacconi, Daniele Zoico) and independent curator Giulia Morucchio.
