On the dead bones
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by Joan Schuman, March 2026
When Marjorie Van Halteren invited me to join EAPS, the works already broadcast were quirky: only a slight adherence to the ‘word’ seemed to matter. I was keen to slip into language—as cue, as plummet. It’s as much propulsion as expansion into a creative process: build the structure (sounds+voice); consider the word; dive into the sonic waters; surface and breathe and listen. I didn’t know I needed this invitation. A hunger. Like having the ingredients, but without a reason to make the dish. The word languid kept repeating in my head. Slowly it echoed. I was tired of the world’s rush and clamor and ugly noise. So I offered it. And then the group snatched it, running thither. It became languido and I enjoyed this transformation spooling the email thread. Still, I heard languid.  On the dead bones, Joan Schuman, 2025 A languid history is indolent, lethargic, fatigue-laden. History is not a mound of discrete moments of upheaval—the sudden upthrust of the ground we’re standing on, the catastrophe. History is often simply detritus—in this case: a stash of letters, a collection of war-time incidences, what’s left after the fires burn. History is liminal: it spirals into our present. Spurring this creation are the words of many writers, in particular, gleaned from ephemera—letters and diaries; from printed news—cohered through Nicholson Baker’s deeply heartbreaking tome, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization. In the early 1990s, I discerned an easy shift from radio documentary to radio artistry. Despite forays elsewhere (into galleries, for example, or here at Earlid, which I launched a decade ago), my soul belongs to the broadcast signal and its entwining with random listeners. Find my work at HyperAcousia.  <<< return to hear all EAPS artists |