John F. Barber, PhD

Creative Framework

John Barber's creative efforts focus on sound(s)—radio, sound art, and storytelling. All follow the idea that sound engages with listeners’ imaginations to shape images and stories of their own making. Sound promotes immersion, engagement, and expression of personal experience. Barber's works have been broadcast and exhibited internationally. Information available below.

Catalog

Radio Nouspace

Sound + radio art
1997-present
A curated museum and virtual listening gallery for sound-based narrative works. LEARN more.

Re-Imagined Radio

Radio storytelling
2013-present
Re-imagining classic and contemporary radio storytelling. LEARN more.

Southside Soundwalk

Framework Radio #829
International broadcast
22-29 Jan. 2023
Soundwalk along the South Bank of the River Thames, London, England. LEARN more.

Birds-Traffic-Machines

Framework Radio #808
International broadcast
3-9 July 2022
Fluid time and place grounded in rich listening experiences. LEARN more.

Sound Diary Excerpts

Lights Out Listening Group
Listening event
20 June 2022
Samples of appropriations and field recordings arranged to create a new narrative. LEARN more.

Figurski at Findhorn on Acid

Lights Out Listening Group
Listening event
23 Feb. 2022
Excerpt from “Figurski at Findhorn on Acid,” a radio adaptation of the comedic hypertext novel by Richard Holeton. LEARN more.

Figurski at Findhorn on Acid

Sonic Darts
International broadcast
7 Feb. 2022
Excerpt from “Figurski at Findhorn on Acid,” a radio adaptation of the comedic hypertext novel by Richard Holeton. LEARN more.

Transects

DivFuse Gallery
Exhibition, juried
London, England
4-6 Feb. 2022
Included "Transect: Copenhagen" and "Transect: Jardin du Luxembourg." LEARN more.

War of the Worlds Excerpt

Lights Out Listening Group
Listening event
17 Nov. 2021
Excerpt from re-imagined “The War of the Worlds” radio drama. LEARN more.

Cicada Project X

Lights Out Listening Group
International broadcast
14 July 2021
Alien calls of Brood X Cicadas are heard as both disturbing and beautiful meditating, chanting, OM breathing. "Lockdown Edition 8." LEARN more.

Slideshow of Sonic Specters / Bells and Bagpipes

Lights Out Listening Group
International broadcast
28 April 2021
Celebrates the slide projector; Creates a serendipitous sound composition. "Lockdown Edition 7." LEARN more.

Flight Control / Memoriam—Flying Squirrel / Riding the Rust Belt

Lights Out Listening Group
International broadcast
24 Feb. 2021
Weaves a narrative using live global air traffic control feeds; Obituary for a flying squirrel found along the Pacific Northwest coast of America; Riding in a car with Walt Whitman, looking out the window while listening to the radio, thinking about changes in America's Rust Belt. "Lockdown Edition 6." LEARN more.

COVID Nightmares and Music Heard from Space While Admiring View from Hill

Lights Out Listening Group
International broadcast
16 Dec. 2020
Sonifies nightmares of contracting COVID; A land-soundscape seen/heard from a hill at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA. "Lockdown Edition 5." LEARN more.

COVID Dreamscapes

Framework Radio #738
International broadcast
13-19 Dec. 2020
Sonic interpretations of my COVID dreams. LEARN more.

Beginning-Middle-End / Tiny Sounds

Lights Out Listening Group
International broadcast
20 Sep. 2020
Explores Aristotelian idea of every narrative having a beginning, middle, and end; Uncurated sound art performance at Goldsmith’s College, London. Several persons making sounds with small instruments. "Lockdown Edition 4." LEARN more.

Dogs Bark Far Away

Lights Out Listening Group
International broadcast
3 July 2020
Explores liminal listening moments throughout a day. Soundscapes and field recordings depict increase sonic ambience through day, returning to the natural soundscape in the evening. "Lockdown Edition 3." LEARN more.

Say Their Names

Multimedia memorial
May 2020-present
Responds to the murder of George Floyd, 25 May 2020 by Minneapolis Police Department officers. LEARN more.

Coho Crossing

Framework Radio #711
International broadcast
26 Apr.-2 May 2020
Provides a sonic journey between Canada and the United States, aboard the ferry M/V Coho. LEARN more.

Ecoustics

The Wrong Digital Art Biennale
Int'l installation/exhibition
Nov. 2019-Mar. 2020
Explores how anthropogenic sounds may overpower natural sounds, but not displace them. LEARN more.

We Can See Edith by Radio

The Wrong Digital Art Biennale
Int'l installation/exhibition
Nov. 2019-Mar. 2020
Responds to the question, "What is the audible form—the sound—of the intermediary, and what does this entity (person, myth, animal) herald?" LEARN more.

Sound Spheres

ICIDS
Int'l. installation/exhibition
5-8 Dec. 2018
Explores interactive, serendipitous sound-based narratives. LEARN more.

Hipoglote 100

Hipoglote
International broadcast
9 Nov. 2018
Celebrates 100th episode of Hipoglote, a Portuguese radio program about sound poetry, voice, and word. LEARN more.

Dogs Bark Far Away

Sounding Nature
International exhibition
Nov. 2018
Explores impact of human noise on nature. Included in Sounding Nature, project of Cities and Memory. LEARN more.

Rainstorm Reveries

Framework Radio #658
International broadcast
21-27 Oct. 2018
Explores liminal listening associated with rainstorms. LEARN more.

Beginning-Middle-End

Música i Geografica
International broadcast
14 June 2018
Explores Aristotelian idea of every narrative having a beginning, middle, and end. A sound collage narrative. LEARN more.

Zambezi River Bridge

A Radio Bridge across the Zambezi
CD recording
29 Apr. 2018
Benefits Zongwe FM, Sinazongwe, Zambia, and the women of Zubo Trust in Binga, Zimbabwe. LEARN more.

Tunnel To Another World

Arabic Electronic Literature
International exhibition
Dubai, UAE
25-27 Feb. 2018
Explores sounds one might hear on a journey via tunnel to another world. LEARN more.

Internet Galaxy

Sound Maps for Dreamers II
CD recording
Sonospace, London, England
26 Jan. 2018
Imagines sounds of electronic information flowing through the Internet. LEARN more.

Music, Space, View, Hill

A View from a Hill CD recording
Linear Obsessional Recordings, London, England
24 Dec. 2017
Considers landscape following the prompt "A View from a Hill." LEARN more.

In Progress

Framework Radio #623
International broadcast
17 Dec. 2017-13 Jan. 2018
Explores narrative composed entirely of mechanical sounds. LEARN more.

Imaginative Radio Plays

Helicotrema Festival 2017
International broadcast
20-24 Nov. 2017
Experiments with site-specific listening contexts. Connected with Venice Art Biennale. LEARN more.

11'22"

FILE 2017
International exhibition
São Paulo, Brazil
18 July-3 Sep. 2017
Explores broadly electronic language through the act of listening. LEARN more.

PSA: Interrupted Suspense

Microtopies 2017
International broadcast
8 July 2017
Re-Imagines a public service announcement for broadcast on Música i Geografica, Barcelona, Spain. LEARN more.

In Memoriam

Divine Sounds
Exhibition
5 May 2017
Provides obituaries for a flying squirrel, a salmon, a jellyfish, and a bird, found along the Oregon and Washington coasts. LEARN more.

Graduation Stories

Oral history
May 2017
Collects graduation stories. Listen to Graduation Stories.

Another Cougar First Down / Flight Control

Audiograft 2017
International exhibition
7-19 Mar. 2017
Explores sounds at American football game and narratives in nuanced flight control communications. LEARN more.

A Mighty Span

PDX Bridge Festival
Commissioned installation
11 Feb. 2017
Imagines a live radio broadcast of opening ceremonies for the Interstate Bridge across the Columbia River, 14 February 1917. LEARN more.

Transect London

Framework Radio #583
International broadcast
29 Jan.-4 Feb. 2017
Combines features of soundscapes, soundwalks, and sound maps to promote immersive listening experiences of sounds found in London. LEARN more.

Dream Cycle

Art in Dream Project
International exhibition
Jan. 2017
Imagines dreams during the five interconnected stages of sleep and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) as identified by different brain waves (sounds). LEARN more.

A Change Is Gonna Come

Sound art
2017-present
Resists racism and discrimination with an anthem for civil rights and a just society. Works to hasten its arrival. LEARN more.

A Train Is Arriving / Departing

1 Minute Autohypnosis project
CD #38, recording
Nov. 2016
Selected by international sound artist Pedro Bericat, Zaragoza, Spain, for this limited edition CD distributed as mail art. LEARN more.

Techne_Lab Interview

Podcast interview
31 Mar. 2016
Interviewed by media artist / writer Mark Amerika as an artist-educator affiliated with the Intermedia Art, Writing and Performance program at University of Colorado at Boulder. LEARN more.

Water, Waves, Dreams

Framework Radio #542
International broadcast
31 Jan.-6 Feb. 2016
Explores water, waves, and dreams as specific sound environments, or interpretations. LEARN more.

Sound Diary

Interactive sound project
2016-present
Combines curated sounds to create interactive sound-based narratives. Meaning is made through this interaction, and by listening. LEARN more.

Angles, Time, Perspectives

Guimarães Noc Noc Art Festival
International exhibition
3-4 Oct. 2015
Explores the collision of tomorrow, today, and yesterday. Results include soundscape, choral, sonic portrait, and serendipitous connection. LEARN more.

Remembering the Dead

Multimedia memorial
2015-present
Displays and speaks the names of victims of mass shootings in America. LEARN more.

The Stranger

Echoes #4
International broadcast
7-8 Mar. 2014
Samples BBC radio interviews and Albert Camus reading from his novel L'etranger (The Stranger) as overheard conversations of strangers rich with narrative thoughts and experiences. LEARN more.

Internet Soundscape

Echoes #3
International broadcast
30 Nov.-1 Dec. 2013
Imagines ebb and flow of electronic communications facilitated by the Internet, a global information sharing network. LEARN more.

Where's Waldo / the Text?

Electronic Literature Organization
International exhibition
24-27 Sep. 2013
Argues that sound(s) are essential to electronic literature, as much as reading and writing. The text then, can be located in the act of listening. LEARN more.

Paging Greg Lambert

Echoes #2
International broadcast
20-22 Sep. 2013
Portrays, in soundscapes and auralities, a day of Greg Lambert, an air traffic controller at a West Coast international airport. LEARN more.

Between Sleep and Dreams

Framework Radio #433
International broadcast
9-15 Sep. 2013
Imagines a (sub)conscious sound collage during liminal dreaming, rising and falling like waves on the surface of perception. LEARN more.

Between Sleep and Dreams

Echoes #1
International broadcast
12-14 July 2013
Imagines a (sub)conscious sound collage during liminal dreaming, rising and falling like waves on the surface of perception. LEARN more.

Contact

Echoes #1
International broadcast
12-14 July 2013
Imagines a radio broadcast connecting our world with the spirit spectrum, parallel dimensions, or alien worlds beyond our universe, and what might be heard. LEARN more.

Ambient Pulsations

Echoes #1
International broadcast
12-14 July 2013
Explores a universe of pulsating sounds. By focusing on listening we become more aware of our listening variations and subjectivity. LEARN more.

Ambient Pulsations

Framework Radio #405
International broadcast
28 Jan.-3 Feb. 2013
Explores pulsating sounds from various sources. Listening, we become more aware of variations and subjectivity associated with what we hear. LEARN more.

radioELL

Sound art. 2013-present
Presents audio artifacts of electronic literature as sound-based narratives. LEARN more.

Tell Me A Story about Meditation

Framework Radio #389
International broadcast
23-30 Sep. 2012
Revisits Meditation and Tell Me A Story to create a narrative of meditative listening. LEARN more.

Meditation

Framework Radio #386
International broadcast
2-8 Sep. 2012
Explores sounds associated with meditation, focusing on variations and subjectivity. LEARN more.

Contact

Framework Radio #381
International broadcast
1-8 July 2012
Imagines a radio broadcast connecting our world with the spirit spectrum, parallel dimensions, or alien worlds beyond our universe, and what might be heard. LEARN more.

A Sixties Radio Narrative

Electronic Literature Organization
International exhibition
13-23 June 2012
Samples from radio and television broadcasts of the 1960s to create a meaningful narrative of personal experience. LEARN more.

Tell Me A Story

RadiaLx 2012 Radio Art Festival
International broadcast
28 June 2012
Samples multiple sound sources to create a narrative of the moment. Highlights radio as both a broadcast medium and an art form. LEARN more.

A Sixties Radio Narrative

IDEAS 10: Digital Art and Narrative
International exhibition
2-7 Nov. 2010
Samples from radio and television broadcasts of the 1960s to create a meaningful narrative of personal experience. LEARN more.

Sounds of My Life

Radio Futura
International broadcast
14-15 Oct. 2010
Combines, layers, and remixes oral history, audio narrative, soundscapes, found sounds, radio drama, appropriation, cut ups, and sound effects to create a meaningful listening experience. LEARN more.

Sounds of My Life

RadiaLx Festival of Radio Art
International broadcast
1-3 July 2010
Combines, layers, and remixes oral history, audio narrative, soundscapes, found sounds, radio drama, appropriation, cut ups, and sound effects to create a meaningful listening experience. LEARN more.