writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

Radiogram: original 1960s radiogram, oak veneer, wood, sound track;
Dimensions: h.77 x w.106 x d.42 cms.
Motion sensored, interactive sound track: multiple layered tracks/ looped /duration: 11:09 mins.
This interactive sculpture puts the viewer in the centre of the encounter. The work consists of
two core elements, that is, a sound track and six appropriated and reconfigured vinyl ‘records’. The
idea was to move out from the specific to the general and thus relocate the family’s experience to
wider cultural belief systems and a broader social and historical context. Radiogram is not a ‘found’
object but a ‘real’ family artefact and crucially it belongs in the communal space of the family, living
room. For the family it represents the aspirations of the family’s life in England. For example, this
piece ‐ along with some other special items, came ‘home’ with the family to Ireland in 1966 and
henceforth was known as ‘the London furniture.’ It therefore embodies the family’s hopes, status
and upward mobility. It appears in several sequences of the home movie footage.
The sound track is constructed from over 43 individual, fragmentary sound files. These range
from: archival recordings of key 1960s Irish political broadcasts, the humming and crackling sound of
analog radio, environmental recordings of train stations and sea harbors, archival radio broadcasts in
several languages, snippets from the aunties and my mother’s interviews and an iconic, 1960s pop
song. There are also several narrative registers, for example, moving from first personal to third
person narratives in order to suggest that these different positions vie and struggle for our attention
creating a variety of perspectives that bring us closer or further away from events and ultimately
alter our view of the past. I also created six new ‘records’ encased in pullout, transparent, archival
files (stored on either side of the radiogram). On each vinyl I designed and forged alternative, centre
labels. These new song titles represent my re‐interpretation of the family’s emigration story, in six
parts, denoting different physical and temporal locations. These range across two countries England
and Ireland and span the period 1950‐1966. For example, my birth, my parents initial emigration
period, ongoing family holidays in Ireland and strategic, political events.
Radiogram contests the idea of a homogeneous cultural and social ‘transmission’ by alluding to
the multiple political, cultural, social and family discourses that circulate one’s life in a given period.
By appropriating a key piece of 1960s, modern technology ‐ used to both entertain and glamorise the
family and stay ‘in touch’ with current news and events ‐ I wanted to transform this familiar piece of
iconic, domestic furniture into a more radicalised, counter‐archive that speaks back to more urgent
issues of what constitutes Irish identity and representation in the period under review. The multiple,
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