Our Proposal

We are proposing a weekly podcast series Sonic Citations, to run alongside the Sensational Books exhibition, with each episode inspired by a book in the exhibition catalogue. The podcast would be a playful and accessible junction between the thematics of the exhibition and further investigations, into the soundscapes of books. The podcast format would establish an audience with both exhibition visitors and listeners in other parts of the UK and the world.

With sound acting as a dialogue between research and practice, we would collaborate closely with curators, librarians and researchers at the Bodleian, as well as artists and researchers from other backgrounds and disciplines, including practitioners who have also worked on this project. We would interview them for the podcast, as well as invite them to share their influences and interests on our accompanying website. We would also like to create a physical book to be displayed at the exhibition. This would be inspired by the podcast series, inviting visitors to engage with the performativity of books. 

The podcast episodes will reference an item from the exhibition collection as a starting point. Each twenty minute episode will consist of an array of interviews and sonic works, responding to and expanding on the chosen exhibition item. The series will be available on its own website, hosted on Research Catalogue, as well as being available on other platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Resonance FM, and could be made available at the exhibition itself through the tablets and headphones at the Weston Library. 

To listen to a taster episode of the podcast, created for this proposal, please visit the Episodes page.

On the website, under the listing for each podcast episode, will be a link to the footnotes page. Alleviating the eye from the sometimes text-heavy nature of books and academia, our footnotes will encompass snippets of valuable offshoots, offering further watching, reading and listening, expanding on subjects covered in the podcast episode. This page is dedicated to challenging the way we map footnotes within reading. These will create a usable alternative to traditional footnotes, granting listeners the opportunity to dive into their own artistic and intellectual expeditions. 

The book will act as a physical manifestation of the podcasts, translating the audio into a tactile form. This would generate a cycle; the items in the exhibition influencing the podcast, which in turn will influence a new exhibition item. The scope of this book is flexible and evolving, but our preferred option would be to conceive a participatory publication in which exhibition visitors are invited to ‘play’ the book, and discover the performativity of books through ‘tearable’ scores and edible paper. This in turn hopes to challenge the preconception that books are to be ‘read’ through the eye, and encourages visitors to experience the multi-sensory essence of the book. 

Delivery 

We are using Research Catalogue as the main hosting site for the podcast series, as it is a free platform that is highly recognised in arts academia. This means that approximately £166 (one third) of our material budget would be used for a research trip to the library, to cover travel and accommodation expenses. The majority of the podcasts will be recorded remotely which allows us to interview researchers, writers and artists from a distance but we would like to meet with the librarians and curators of the exhibit again so we can discuss their decision process for each chosen catalogue item in more detail. 

Other than a potential further research trip we would like to focus the majority of the budget on the development of the physical book. The remaining two thirds will be used to include costs for paper stocks, printing and binding options. Again, we would like to talk to the book-binding conservator at the Bodleian to discuss methods around creating a book that can be easily disassembled and rebound to focus on the book’s function as a performative part of the collection. 

The previous experience of Calum and Sian suggests they are both well equipped to deliver this project. 

Calum has previously created work for Short Cuts on BBC Radio 4, and sound pieces for Resonance FM, and works as a sound designer, composer and performer for theatre and live art. 

Sian has previously produced and developed a 16-week podcast series hosted at BOLD TENDENCIES, The Journal of Sonic Studies and collected by The British Library in 2018. She also generated the first ‘Sonic Journal’ library in the UK at BOLD TENDENCIES which hosts an audio archive of the podcasts and invites visitors to produce their own journals to add to the collection. 

Future Thoughts 

We hope that the podcast series alongside the book in the exhibition allows visitors both in and out of the library to experience the performative nature of books. We feel that this project has the potential for a life beyond the Sensational Books exhibition, as an on-going collaboration between the library and sound artists. The podcast and website could be a platform for further compelling articulations and reflections of items in the library’s catalogue, as well as a space where librarians and researchers could continue a dialogue with audiences beyond the library, encouraging a new stream of visitors and highlighting hidden treasures in the library’s collection.