Radio Papesse

This sound/media art composition by Matthew Middleton was crafted in the lead up to the 2011 New Zealand parliamentary elections; Hearts/Minds explores how media language influences public opinion during election campaigns.

Interweaving a haphazard collection of media samples and spoken word excerpts from media commentators, philosophers and political theorists, Hearts/Minds evolves through various loosely delineated movements to evoke the delirium of the mass mediascape’s presentation of the political arena, while simultaneously turning a critical and irreverent ear toward the Western press’s ideological mechanisms.

Recalling the subversive media experiments of WS Burroughs and John Oswald’s concept of Plunderphonics, Hearts/Minds can also be heard as something of a meta-commentary on authorship and censorship, an analysis of broadcast radio as a medium historically harnessed to ideological and political purpose, and the role of the news media as politically collusive information moderator.

Presenting initially as a crude radio documentary, the piece develops into an acerbic mulch of industrial psychedelia.


The following samples from other media sources were used in this composition:?
?1. Middleton reads a section of an article by political journalist Gordon Campbell –