Radio as art
Published at — 28 October 2024
The night of October 31st, known for festivities such as Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos, was chosen for the premiere of Osso Gesto, a project that takes the radio program format and transforms it into an artistic proposal. This initiative was created specifically for Teatro Aveirense, within the scope of Aveiro 2024 – Portuguese Capital of Culture, by Von Calhau!, a duo composed of Marta Ângela and João Alves. The program has six episodes, which will be broadcast online, weekly on Thursdays, on Antena 3's podcast schedule.
Osso Gesto takes as its starting point the potential of sound as a raw material, both for its plasticity and for its ability to generate images in the minds of listeners.
Von Calhau!, who presented work in spaces such as the Serralves Foundation (Porto), Culturgest (Lisbon), the Palais de Tokyo (Paris) or the Mackintosh Museum (Glasgow), also drew inspiration from the history of radio. Since the beginning, it has been one of the most innovative means of communication and a permanent laboratory for artistic experimentation – in addition to having been used for other purposes, in times when science and transcendence often mixed.
The name Osso Gesto is a phonetic deformation of the name Cégèste, the mythical character in the film Orpheus, which French filmmaker Jean Cocteau directed in 1950. In the film, Cégèste is the poet who emits radio phrases from the world of the dead to the world of alive, connecting them through the symbolic glue of radio waves.A ‘glue’ also used by the Von Calhau! in these programs, in order to mix and join sound extracts from the most diverse sources, trying to achieve yet another goal: connecting the world of the living with eternity.
This is the first of three moments of Teatro Aveirense's digital programming to be presented until the end of the year.
Osso Gesto takes as its starting point the potential of sound as a raw material, both for its plasticity and for its ability to generate images in the minds of listeners.
Von Calhau!, who presented work in spaces such as the Serralves Foundation (Porto), Culturgest (Lisbon), the Palais de Tokyo (Paris) or the Mackintosh Museum (Glasgow), also drew inspiration from the history of radio. Since the beginning, it has been one of the most innovative means of communication and a permanent laboratory for artistic experimentation – in addition to having been used for other purposes, in times when science and transcendence often mixed.
The name Osso Gesto is a phonetic deformation of the name Cégèste, the mythical character in the film Orpheus, which French filmmaker Jean Cocteau directed in 1950. In the film, Cégèste is the poet who emits radio phrases from the world of the dead to the world of alive, connecting them through the symbolic glue of radio waves.A ‘glue’ also used by the Von Calhau! in these programs, in order to mix and join sound extracts from the most diverse sources, trying to achieve yet another goal: connecting the world of the living with eternity.
This is the first of three moments of Teatro Aveirense's digital programming to be presented until the end of the year.
