A sample of experimental radio documentaries produced by John D’Arcy
Hi (2013)
Hi is a radio documentary about three young people from Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It was commissioned by Resonance FM as part of Derry/Londerry’s year as UK City of Culture 2013. The work explores the opinions of the three young people about their home city – its history, present and future. Interviews took place in October 2013, nearing the end of Derry/Londerry’s year as UK City of Culture.
The work begins in the fashion of a radio documentary, before defying the audience’s expectations of this genre. Instead of an omniscient narrator there are three talking-heads who sometimes seem to converse and argue, but are inevitably separated, each on their own discourse. The narrative arc takes its form from a medley of time-points suggested by the ‘archetypal’ structural schemes: the golden ratio, three-act structure and sonata form. The musicality of each protagonist’s accent and prosody is explored through repetition and manipulation that creates rhythmic sound poetry from bites of banter. This exaggerated intervention in post-production attempts to distance the work from ‘edutainment’ and hopefully to introduces a layer of critical engagement between the listener and the voices.
After being broadcast on Resonance FM, Hi was also played back in exhibition settings at Sounds Alive Festival Dublin (2014) and Sonorities Festival Belfast (2014)
Dynamic Neglect (2012)
Dynamic Neglect is a montage of recorded interviews with patrons and pedestrians in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. Produced at a pivotal time in Belfast’s city centre redevelopment, Dynamic Neglect comments on the harsh disparity between the publicly funded ventures and the desolate streets abandoned by stock-piling land-owners. Interviewees included local business owners, pedestrians, tourists, event organisers and pensioners.
The oral histories are presented in highly edited sequences which attempt to evoke a sense of the mediated recontextualisation one finds in the ‘mash-up’ or found-poetry. Conversations have been broken up to amalgamate sentences and slur the meaning
This editing process is made more and more obvious to the listener as the piece progresses, attempting to prompt a reflection on the directorial and editorial nature of documentary making processes. In doing this, Dynamic Neglect aims to provoke a critical reception of the opinions presented by the interviewees.
Dynamic Neglect has been featured at Voice Presence Absence: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Voice and the Arts, University of Technology, Sydney (2013); Listen to Your Place, a exhibition touring regional arts centres in N. Ireland (2013 – 2014), and at Sound Documents, a concert at Sonic Lab, Belfast (2015).