Daily Fears

Residency at Mobile Radio BSP

Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil

November 2012

Daily Fears is a six part radio work by Octopus Collective's John Hall and Glenn Boulter, produced for Mobile Radio as part of their art radio project at the Sao Paulo Biennial.

‘Mobile Radio BSP is the contribution of Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann to the 30th São Paulo art biennial. It is a temporary radio art station broadcasting from the 3rd September until the 9th December 2012 from a studio inside the Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo in the Parque do Ibirapuera. Transmitting around the clock for fourteen weeks on FM at 87,5 MHz inside the exhibition hall and streaming online at mobile-radio.net & the Bienal website.’

Within a daily slot, Octopus broadcast six hour-long episodes of ‘Daily Fears’ in which deceased English footballers merge with fictional espionage agents and the grand narratives of  'Ulysses' and the 'Radio Ballads' inhabit the local newspaper side-bars as Sao Paulo is temporarily twinned with Barrow-in-Furness.

Drawing comparisons between pre-occupations of local news media on different sides of the globe, the piece combines news clippings from the North West Evening Mail and its Sao Paulo equivalent with monologues, improvised music, traffic reports, songs and animal noises.

The piece features contributions from Leeds-based artist Lynden St John, pupils at Sacred Heart Primary School in Barrow-in-Furness, Pedro Garbellini, Leandro Nerefuh, Sarah Washington, Knut Aufermann, Michael Youles (mysterious envoy of the University of Nottingham in China) and children from the Escola Municipal de Ensino Fundamental Saad Bechara, Osasco singing 'Quando se Quer do Frio Esquentar' (When You Want to Warm Up From the Cold, You Need to Make the Horses Gallop).

With thanks to Mobile Radio and Arts Council England’s International Artists Development fund.