Podcast A unique history of radio, voices from other worlds
The first event of the Prix Pernod Ricard Foundation 2020–21, is a two-voice narrative between the artist Meris Angioletti and the philosopher and radio producer Philippe Baudouin. Both, Meris and Phillipe, are interested in the strange and forgotten history of radio. Together they sketched its genealogy, that draws on animism, technology, occult science and philosophy. In their telling, the body acts as a receiver — an antenna for connection — and radio becomes a potential space for therapeutic transmission, as expressed by Gaston Bachelard. A “ghost machine” with a telepathic mission or a connection to the human psyche with the power of a dream, as Gilles Deleuze put it: are radio and its electromagnetic waves also the guardians and vehicles of “voices from other worlds”?
Meris Angioletti is an artist and researcher. Her latest works explore the mechanisms of perception, memory and psyche. Her most recent exhibitions include La vérité n’est pas la vérité at MABA, Nogent-sur-Marne; Couteau sans lame et dépourvu de manche and Le jour des esprits est notre nuit at CRAC Alsace, Altkirch (2019); Forme-Pensiero at Galleria Ottozoo, Milan (solo); and Le grand jeu at FRAC Champagne- Ardenne (solo) (2018).
Philippe Baudouin is a philosopher, radio producer and a member of the Design Spot, the design research centre at the University of Paris- Saclay. His research in the history of occultism has led to the publication of a number of articles and books, including Thomas Edison: Le royaume de l’au-delà (reissue) and Les forces de l’ordre invisible – Émile Tizané (1901–1982). He is also the co-author of a sonic anthology of occult phenomena and is currently preparing a work based on the archives of French parapsychology (to be published by La Martinière in 2021).
