From 2001-2002 I recorded the soundscapes of abandons factories and wharehouses along the Lachine Canal in Montreal. In the intervening years, all of these unique acoustic spaces are now lost -either demolished entirely or renovated into condominiums. I linked these field recordings touring specific empty places with more ethereal cities of radio and memory: the “lost” cities on the shortwave dial. Many transistor radios, particularly from Europe, were designed with the names of cities in place of frequencies on the dial, but as shortwave broadcastings is in decline and as stations migrate to other positions on the dial, tuning to these frequencies often yields only static. Vacant City Radio considers ebbs in place and memory through ephemeral sonic and radiophonic representations of city, through lost sounds found in the dark halls of the factory and the radio dial.

Work developed during the group residency Reverie: Noise City at the Western Front, Vancouver, 2005.
First broadcasting: ORF Kunstradio, May 2005
Mastered at Psychospace Sound, Toronto.
credits
released 05 January 2005