Radio at Night

James Richards’ Radio at Night (2015) grapples with the anxiety and pleasure of seeing and sensing in an era saturated by technology. Like his previous work, this short experimental video collages together appropriated footage from highly disparate sources: intimate fragments from cinema and medical film, an extract of an erotic movie that documents an imagined Venetian costume party, news broadcasts, negative footage of seagulls flying over the ocean, and imagery of pigs and fish being processed at a food facility, to name a few. Radio at Night is especially preoccupied with the act of seeing and the ways technology makes this sensation mechanical. Accompanied by a soundtrack composed by the artist that includes vocal arrangements recorded with British harmony trio ‘vocal Juice’ refracted through his sampled electronics., Richards confronts his audience with close ups on faces as his subjects’ eyes dart back and forth across the screen.Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with major support from the Bentson Foundation.Isla leaver Yap