A ring of old radios takes centre stage at The Substation in The Enormous Radio, a world-premiere work exploring an uncanny connection between sound, technology and the animal world. Running from 30 September to 10 October, the production fills the Main Space with glowing dials, crackling speakers and twitching antennas.
Feeling somehow like a séance, what are these old-school communication devices tuning into? Uncanny messages from the animal world. This new work is part of an ongoing collaboration between innovative documentary theatremaker Roslyn Oades and internationally acclaimed sound artist Bob Scott.
“I have interviewed humans from all walks of life from professional boxers to nursing homes to schoolies on the gold coast,” explains Oades. “I wanted to turn my attention to Australia’s wildlife.”
In the early days of tape recorders, scientists thought they could hear electronic voice phenomena (EVP) coming through in the background of recordings. A similar sort of ‘haunting’ is what Oades & Scott are playing with, a new ‘techno spiritualism’, as new technology affects and enables our understanding of the unseen world.
Oades is a member of Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group whose extensive catalogue of documentary field recordings provides key source material and inspiration for The Enormous Radio.
Oades with text dramaturg Sarah Walker, feed animal recordings into voice enhancement software, instructing the machine learning software to translate as if they were spoken English.
The result is an uncanny aural and textual language that taps into our human desire to communicate with the animal world. Old radios are central to the work, reflecting the vital role they still play for Australian communities in emergencies and natural disasters.
Oades has a long history of collaboration and connection with Chamber Made. This work was seeded as part of a FRAME Documentary Lab Program and had been in development for several years when Oades submitted it to Voltage, a new commissioning partnership between Chamber Made and The Substation.
“The response to the Voltage commission call-out was massive, and a real reminder of how much artists are hungry for these opportunities,” says Chamber Made Artistic Director Tamara Saulwick.
“The Enormous Radio is a perfect example of why we created this partnership with The Substation. It is haunting, surprising and utterly singular. We could not be more excited to bring it to audiences and we look forward to seeing how they respond.”
In the time of human-made climate emergency, The Enormous Radio stokes our longing to connect and tune into the unknown and the wild.
The Enormous Radio
The Substation, 1 Market Street, Newport
Season: 30 September – 10 October 2026
Information and Bookings: www.thesubstation.org.au
Image: The Enormous Radio – photo by Sarah Walker