Antenna, laboratory, archive: sound explorations at Radio Utopia

As part of the French pavilion at the XVIII Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, muoto architects with Georgi Stanishev designed the Ball Theater, associating the idea of sound creation with the architectural project from the outset. Radio Utopia occupied the Ball Theater for five days in August as part of the Pavilion's vision of architecture as a receptacle for life. Designed as a sound laboratory and radio antenna, Radio Utopia provided a platform for receiving and broadcasting discussions, testimonies, sounds and installations. The medium of the radio made it possible to question the socio-cultural conditions of an event such as the Biennale, of a restricted circle of visitors. Radio broadcasting serves as both a parable and a tangible means of connecting with distant places and potential differences using sound recording. It also offers the possibility of extending an event beyond its physical location and ephemeral temporality. Radio Utopia has left an audio trace in a corner of the Web. From the experimental perspective in the tradition of soundscape studies, this paper will look at three main aspects of the project: 1) a pavilion as a radio antenna, 2) a space of creation, a sound laboratory, and 3) a sound archiving platform.