Sound jams: infomercials from the future

Sound Jams is a series of collective audio-makings that artist and facilitator Ål Nik hosts with the aim to inspire makers to play with the sonic format in their work. In the series of "Infomercials from the future", the groups create an audio collage of infomercials on a particular topic. The makers are led through a playful process of doodling, writing and experimenting with alternative reality speculations, turning them into fun and short radio commercials.

_at Indiecon 2024

// part of Indiecon 2024, an independent publishing festival in Oberhafen, Hamburg, Germany.

_context

Infomercials from the future: Indiecon edition

With this sound jam, I wanted to raise attention to the sonic format and create an accessible entry to publishers and makers who are not used to work with sound. For it, I decided to invite the participants to make infomercials - a fun that is easy and fun to make. Since the festival was about independent publishing, I decided to invite the participants to speculate about the future of publishing and what limitations we might face 20 years from now.

_infomercial

It's 2044. The ways of publishing content are somehow limited. However, we want to focus on the positive parts of creating with limitations - awareness, consciousness about resources, creativity, and collectiveness:

Positive Reduction
▶▶ listen here

_at Zine Camp 2023

the workshop promotion visual

Workshop // Sound Jam: Infomercials Audiozine Making // part of ▶▶Zine Camp 2023. A free festival to make zines and friends @ Worm, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Sound Jams is a series of collective audiozines making that artist and facilitator Ål Nik hosts with the aim to inspire makers to play with the sonic format in their work. In this workshop, the group will create an audio collage of infomercials. The makers will be led through a playful process of doodling, writing and experimenting with alternative reality speculations, turning them into fun and short radio commercials.

_context

notebook notes when planning the workshop

With this sound jam, I wanted to facilitate a playful way of discussing a serious topic and addressing it with sound. For it, I decided to invite the participants to make infomercials - a format we used for our graduation radio show at XPUB. A few months ago, I got a theme as a prompt from the Zine Camp organisers - access. Thus, I was thinking what if we speculate about access to resources. I wanted to think a little but about the future and was curious how would a group of (most likely) strangers would think of it.

informercial - an advertising which promotes a product in an informative and supposedly objective style. [source: Oxford Languages]

_workshop report

during the workshop, we speculated about which resources could be somehow limited in the future

// 5-11-2023 // 11:30-13:30 // WORM, Rotterdam

_introduction // ~5 min // introducing who I am and what is this workshop about

_who is in the room // ~5 min // a round with everyone introducing themselves and why they joined this workshop

_introducing the theme // ~5 min // a brief introduction to the topic of the workshop - "informercials from the future". We played with a scenario that it is 2044 and the access to some resources is somehow limited or regulated - this was the prompt for the participants to start working with.

_letter writing // ~10 min // individually, they wrote a short letter telling someone else how are things these days in 2044 (warm up);
then, we made a round of extracting some resources from their letters; and brainstormed about what other resources can be limited in the future.

_infomercials making // ~40 min // we listened to three examples of infomercials as an inspiration; then people formed groups of 2-3 people and worked on their infomercials. The task was to record a 1-minute-max audio infomercial about 1 resource that is limited. They were invited to pick up the papers from the brainstorming; to simply use their phones or the equipment I've brought.

_listening party // ~10 min // we listened the 3 infomercials altogether; and had a short discussion about the process; getting also feedback about the workshop.

_infomercials

It's 2044. Some of the resources commonly known in 2023 are quite scarce now. The access to them is somehow limited and/or regulated. Here are some infomercials to shine some light on the current circumstances these days:

Scentification Clinic
▶▶ listen here

Housing Council
▶▶ listen here

The Chair Party
▶▶ listen here

_reflections

_resources // During the preparation of the workshop, I was also speculating about what kind of resources could be limited and what ones will come out from the participants' minds. Just a little over a week before the workshop, I actually had a situation with limitation to a core resource I use every day - internet (my wifi at home was dead for a few days). I was working on a freelance project that required me to join an online video call and then upload a number of heavy design files. I carefully planned to do the job during the day while working from a cafe, but of course - I had make more edits in the evening. Since this whole work was with deadline "yesterday", I really didn't want to wait until the morning to upload them again, but I knew I had to use my roaming data (that I pay for each mb used...). For a couple of days, it really felt like 20+ years ago, or maybe 20 years ahead...

Anyways, during the workshop, there were some interesting proposals for resources that might get scarce in the future. Here is the full list that was on the table:

scent; nature [water, fresh air]; attention; we; whole food groups; internet; electric lights; social contacts; time; zines; sand; housing; eyesight [glasses or medical care for it]; bonus: chairs 

_playfulness // I didn't want the workshop's topic to create a grim atmosphere in the group, so I tried to give some prompts that could direct them going into the direction of a playful approach and irony. I played them some examples of infomercials we did for the xpub grad radio show, which were indeed quite ironic and mocking either with the content, or with the way the infomercial was made. Laughing altogether whilst listening to them, I think, helped to set such an ambience in the room.

_accessibility // It wasn't a technical workshop. There was no purpose into working together on sound-editing programmes or diving into technical knowledge for doing it. It was intended to be accessible for anyone and to be a little prompt for them to explore the sound medium more in the future. Thus, the participants were invited to use their phones for recording - and by doing so, they got creative on how to add ambience to the soundscape of their works without doing editing afterwards. Some of them did work with editing and that allowed them to pick up which recordings to finally put into their mix and which to leave out.