Output details

On Air

Continuing my longstanding strand of work with site-specific radio broadcast, including Listening Ground, Lost Acres (1994) and Linked (2003-present), On Air is a durational site-specific radio broadcast that compacts the elements of local radio into a simple poetic system.

On Air took place during the nine days of Exhibition Road Show during the opening week of the London 2012 Olympics. A team of broadcasters and commentators from the worlds of sport and the arts (see portfolio for full list) perched high above Exhibition Road, on top of the Victoria and Albert museum, narrating the constant flow of activity visible from their eyrie.

Visitors to the festival used a receiver to tune into the transmission on headphones, occasionally finding themselves the subject of commentary. Using analogue FM broadcast technology this site-specific and durational work sustains an open-ended live commentary and broadcasts it within its own environs. This was achieved by supplying the public with specially manufactured FM receivers worn in-ear and tuned to the FM frequency of the transmitter above, thus creating a zone of several 100m in which listeners could wander and listen.

Foregrounding the concept of witnessing, the improvised recounting of unforeseen and unplanned events extends the concept and practice of live sports commentating. On Air makes new art out of the nature of commentary itself, wherein the skills and rhythms of activity are matched by the eloquence of description, bringing unplanned poetry to the ears of many, and music to the masses.

On Air was commissioned by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea for Exhibition Road Show.