Hearts /Minds by Matt Middleton
produced by Radio One 91 Fm, Dundedin
[HEARTS/MINDS]
a new sound/media art composition by Matthew Middleton 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 W S 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, c. 2011. Presenting initially as a crude radio documentary, the piece develops into an acerbic mulch of industrial psychedelia.
These are the clues – Follow the sound.
Produced by Erin Weisgerber and Dominique Ferraton at CKUT Radio in Montreal,
Featuring the voices of Kristopher Rosadiuk, Michael Pedruski, Erin Weisgerber and Dominique Ferraton.