Radio Dada by Rosa Menkman and Extraboy, video, 2006

The video-images are constructed out of nothing but the image created by feedback (I turned a high-end camera on a screen that was showing, in real time, what I was filming, creating a feedback loop). Then I glitched the video by changing its format and subsequently exporting it into animated gifs. I (minimalistically) edited the video in Quicktime. Then I sent the file to Extraboy, who composed music for the video. The composing process started with a hand held world radio. Extraboy scanned through frequencies and experimented with holding the radio in different parts of the room while touching different objects. Eventually he got the radio to oscillate noise in the tempo that he perceived in the video. The added synthesizer sounds were played live to further build on the non-digital sound and rhythm. This was later contrasted with drums which were digitally synthesized and processed through effects with a very digital sound to them. Just like with the video, the digital and analogue media and aesthetics of sound are mixed into one coherent whole.

Rosa Menkman and Extraboy have been working on Familj since 2008. Familj, or rather at this point, Studies for Familj, is a research project in which we investigate a family of digital artefacts consisting of Glitch, Noise, Feedback and Compression. Together we strive to make a compilation of music videos, which contain both a sense of their physicality as well as their digital side. In doing this, we get an even bigger understanding of the ways the bowels of the machine work.