Wednesday at 12:30 pm
The provocative “From Ark to Microchip” mixes commentary, dramatic re-enactment, original music, historic voices, audio art and sound effects in a pan-historical, pan-cultural milieu. Programs in The From Ark to Microchip series have received a Golden Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, an Audio Works Special Selection, a Peabody Award (as part of Lost & Found Sounds) and funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.
Featured Ark luminaries—
- Charles Darwin, Philip K. Dick, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Diamanda Galas, Elvis Presley, Mary Shelley, Erik Satie, Sun Ra, Emanuel Swedenborg, Harry S. Truman, Orson Welles, among others
Featured Ark performers—
- Thomas Aber, Tony Allard, Liz Amsbry, Cliff Baldwin, Black Crack Revue, Hafiza Capehart, Don Cherry, Patrick Clancy, William Easton, Betse Ellis, Rich Fish, Rhondda Francis, Rodney Franks, Chuck Haddix, Michael Henry, Ed Herrmann, Kristin Miltner, Charlie Morrow, newEar, Bruce Prince-Joseph, Warren Rosser, Yoshiko Sato, Joey Skidmore, Raymond Starzmann, Gerald Trimble, Jeffrey Ruckman, Ellen Zweig, among others
Upcoming episodes
Heavenly Arcana: Swedenborg’s Tour of the Planets May 29, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Guest host Emmanuel Swedenborg (channeled by actor Matt Wilson) is our cosmological guide through the solar system.Read More
Contacting the Other June 5, 2013 | 12:30 pm
In a very real ‘you are what you eat’ sense of the word, psycho-active plants are us and we are them. Contacting the other is just a mirror, but looking within may surprise us by its strangeness.Read More
Scrat June 12, 2013 | 12:30 pm
“A joyous celebration of the pagan roots of man, reinterpreted through the prism of modern technology…linking the folklore of Scrat Rut (an old German hobgoblin figure) to the work of the18th century inventor Volta, via the traditional Maypole dance; en route, making observations
about the human 'electricity' that is generated by human energy (particularly sexual energy).”
‐‐Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector (UK)
Read More
International Radio Solstice June 19, 2013 | 12:30 pm
The first time the world satellite network was used connecting musicians on several continents.Read More
In Praise of the Midland Sun June 26, 2013 | 12:30 pm
This week's From Ark to Microchip features performers channeling solar energy into beautiful music.Read More
H for Thermonuclear July 3, 2013 | 12:30 pm
On today's From Ark to Microchip, it's a fascinating half-hour of experimental music, as the short- and long-term effects of the B62a-mod 11 nuclear bomb (stockpiled at Whiteman Air Force Base) are mapped to the newEar contemporary chamber ensemble--atmospheric effects, shock waves, electromagnetic pulse waves, and biological effects.Read More
Big, Scary UFO July 10, 2013 | 12:30 pm
This week on From Ark to Microchip, we discuss curious acausal time linksRead More
Big, Scary Momo July 17, 2013 | 12:30 pm
On today's edition of From Ark to Microchip, it's a cryptozoological roundup.Read More
Recent episodes
Circle of Love: The Soul‐Journey of Emanuel Swedenborg May 22, 2013 | 12:30 pm
“Taller than the others this man walked among them, at a distance, now and then calling the angels by their secret names. He would see that which earthly eyes do not see: The fierce geometry, the crystal labyrinth of God and the sordid milling of infernal delights.” ‐‐JL BorgesRead More
Truman on Energy May 15, 2013 | 12:30 pm
From plowing Grandview fields with a bull‐tongue, to crafting the Rural Electrification Act, to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…Harry S. Truman re‐enactor Raymond Starzmann explores energy policy from the past with implications for our future.Read More
Harry’s Shadow May 8, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Harry’s Shadow’ explores, in a style that can be solemn but more often veers into the absurd, what it was like growing up as Harry Truman’s neighbor. “‐‐Aaron Barnhart, The Kansas City StarRead More
Hidden Touch May 1, 2013 | 12:30 pm
The Hall of Mirrors shatters--Orson Welles multiplies through his own alternative endings to Citizen Kane, and the dark recesses in Touch of Evil.Read More
Out of Time April 24, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Featuring newEar and soprano Patrician Johnson “...a 30-minute dramatization of a woman isolated in a damp, echoing cave. Removed from all time cues, she becomes obsessive-compulsive, brushing her teeth, free-associating words...”--Scott Cantrell, The Kansas City StarRead More
Sonic Force April 17, 2013 | 12:30 pm
“Co‐composer Dwight Frizzell captured the full range of motion and two fully operational US Air Force attack planes from their flights to their subtle shutdown sounds. Orchestrator Michael Henry then wrote a score, using traditional (military band) instruments to echo the flaring motors and snorting exhaust. The (National Audio Theatre) plays the piece with stunt‐pilot daring, blurring the lines between music and machine.”—Andrew Miller, The PitchRead More
The Other Side of Orson April 10, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Orson Welles’s lesser known projects such as It’s All True, Othello and The Other Side of the Wind are re-staged in radiophonic space. With Bill Dye as Orson Welles.Read More
Divine Sparks: Gnostic Voices from Nag Hammadi to Berkeley April 3, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Voices released from ancient hidden texts…Voices of living information that slumbered in the buried codices at Nag Hammadi for centuries..Ancient voices of a plasmate living through us as information.Read More
Counterclock Worlds of Philip K. Dick, Part 2 March 27, 2013 | 12:30 pm
The seminal sci‐fi author (“Bladerunner”) and pataphysician Philip K. Dick’s explorations of alternative worlds and techno‐dilemmas. With Arnold Young as Philip K. Dick.Read More
Counterclock Worlds of Philip K. Dick, Part 1 March 20, 2013 | 12:30 pm
The seminal sci‐fi author (“Bladerunner”) and pataphysician Philip K. Dick’s explorations of alternative worlds and techno‐dilemmas. With Arnold Young as Philip K. Dick.Read More
The Irish Wilderness: A Phantasmic Meditation March 13, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Winner of the Golden Reel Award for Audio Theater. Performed by the National Audio Theatre Festivals. “Part composition, part hoÅNrspiel...The Irish Wilderness uses field recordings of the ‘wondrous springs’ of Ripley and Oregon counties, Missouri, interleaved with ‘traditional tunes known to the Irish Catholics (circa 1859)’ to document the tragic history of the Irish settlers...”‐‐Dan Warburton, Signal to Noise.Read More
Contacting the Other: Amazing Psychotropic Tales February 27, 2013 | 12:30 pm
“In a very real ‘you are what you eat’ sense of the word, psycho‐active plants are us and we are them. Contacting the other is just a mirror, but looking within may surprise us by its strangeness‐‐yet concomitantly reassure us with its primeval been‐there‐done‐that familiarity and amplitude. For nature’s pharmacy reaffirms the ecstatic core that is at the fruitful heart of every compassionate religion and every human impulse leading outward, feet planted and hands extended, to greet our celestial siblings on some future shore.” ‐‐Jay Mandeville.Read More
DARWIN, the musical drama, part 2 February 20, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Part two of the musical drama as performed by the National Audio Theatre Festival starring Richard Fish.Read More
DARWIN, the musical drama, part 1 February 13, 2013 | 12:30 pm
The adventurous life of Charles Darwin with period music and nature soundscapes, told through his own words as well as the voices of those who knew him – both his attackers and defenders.Read More
Seeds from the Sun February 6, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Sun Ra’s music, lyrics and poetry performed by Gamelan Sekkar Jaya, Art Hoyle, Eugene Chadbourne, The Residents, Georgio Gaslini, MC5, Elliott Sharp, Thurston Moore, and BCRRead More
Solar Flare: Sun Ra riffs the blues Kansas City Style January 30, 2013 | 12:30 pm
If jazz is happiness, as Sun Ra contends, then the blues is a vehicle for transformation—the pathway to rise above the unenlightened savagery of the terrestrial sphere. Sun Ra jumps the blues Kansas City style as influenced by their many gigs at rib joints, lofts, dance halls and theaters in the Midwest in the 1980s. With commentary by Chuck Haddix, author of “Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop.”Read More
Thus Spake Ra January 23, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Narrated by Sun Ra from rare interviews 1979‐1992. Music, songs and space‐chants Sun Ra and his Astro‐Infinity Arkestra featuring June Tyson, John Gilmore and Marshall AllenRead More
New Ring Around Saturn: The Legacy of Sun Ra, part 3 January 16, 2013 | 12:30 pm
June Tyson joins Sun Ra’s cosmo-journey for Arkestra performances at the Great Pyramid of Giza, and in New York City and Oakland, California.Read More
New Ring Around Saturn: The Legacy of Sun Ra, part 2 January 9, 2013 | 12:30 pm
The life and times of Sun Ra from his experiments with new electronic keyboards in the 1950s to the stellar performances and recording sessions in 1960’s New York City.Read More
New Ring Around Saturn: The Legacy of Sun Ra, part 1 January 2, 2013 | 12:30 pm
Jazz master Sun Ra’s musical/metaphysical journey from his origins in Ancient Egypt, to his childhood in depression‐era Birmingham, and Afro-spiritual quest with Fletcher Henderson in 1950s Chicago. Featuring Chuck Haddix (author “Kansas City Jazz”) and Patrick Neas.Read More
DIVINE SPARKS: GNOSTIC VOICES from NAG HAMMADI to BERKELEY December 26, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Voices released from ancient hidden texts…Voices of living information that slumbered in the buried codices at Nag Hammadi for centuries..Ancient voices of a plasmate living through us as information. With Arnold Young as Philip K. Dick, Bill Dye as the voice of the Plasmate, and Gerald Trimble’s cittern.Read More
APOCALYPSE UNTOLD December 19, 2012 | 12:30 pm
The Apocalypse revealed in an upbeat musical performed by Kansas City’s Black Crack Revue featuring songs “Headed Toward Extinction” and “Dinosaur Breakfast.”Read More
COUNTERCLOCK WORLDS OF PHILIP K. DICK, Part 2 December 12, 2012 | 12:30 pm
The seminal sci‐fi author (“Bladerunner”) and pataphysician Philip K. Dick’s explorations of alternative worlds and techno‐dilemmas. With Arnold Young as Philip K. Dick.Read More
COUNTERCLOCK WORLDS OF PHILIP K. DICK December 5, 2012 | 12:30 pm
The seminal sci‐fi author (“Bladerunner”) and pataphysician Philip K. Dick’s explorations of alternative worlds and techno‐dilemmas. With Arnold Young as Philip K. Dick.Read More
PHENOMENOLOGICAL TELEPHONE November 28, 2012 | 12:30 pm
From psycho-sexual contrivance to the emergent world brain--the social history of the telephone is explored with no angle unturnedRead More
TRUMAN THANKSGIVING FIRESIDE CHAT November 21, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Harry S. Truman returns to the future for a Thanksgiving Fireside Chat—with Truman re-enactor Raymond Starzman, Richard Nixon (as himself) and host Dwight Frizzell.Read More
The Other Side of Orson November 14, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Orson Welles’s lesser known projects such as It’s All True, Othello and The Other Side of the Wind are re-staged in radiophonic space.Read More
Orson Welles: Hidden Touch November 7, 2012 | 12:30 pm
The Hall of Mirrors shatters--Orson Welles multiplies through his own alternative endings to Citizen Kane, and the dark recesses in Touch of Evil.Read More
Postmodern Prometheus October 31, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Featuring Susie Ersahin and newEar "…disembodied voices intoned excerpts from Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein …a whole crew of assistants produced sound effects‐‐a creaking gate (real), boots on gravel (ditto), thunder (gravel in a big balloon) and rain (a garden sprinkler emptied into a tub of water)…the effect was perfect...a real ear‐cleanser.." ‐‐ Kansas City Star
Read More
Harry’s Shadow October 10, 2012 | 12:30 pm
From Ark to Microchip co-producer grew up in Harry's Shadow in Independence, MO. What was that like?Read More
Truman: Buck Stops October 3, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Harry Truman re-enactor Raymond Starzman will be a guest in a live episode of From Ark to Microchip. You can call in your questions during the broadcast at 816 931 5534 or leave your question here in the comment section.Read More
This Audible Earth September 26, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Cage’s concept of pan-aurality is engaged by young audio artists seeking to make the inaudible audible. With Kristin Miltner, Lisa Ramsey, Kristian Ball, Beniah Leuske, Jennie Pakradooni, Kristie Drew and Leja Goodman. Recipient of a Radio Works Special Selection Award.Read More
Three Ghosts: Erik, Marcel and John September 19, 2012 | 12:30 pm
John Cage, in his own stand‐up comic performance recorded in Lawrence, Kansas in 1980, conjures the ghosts of Erik Satie, Marcel Duchamp and himself. Dr. Andrew Granade tightens the screws inside a prepared piano. Erik Satie provides the furniture music, as arranged by Jeffrey Ruckman and played by newEar.Read More
Indeterminate Moments with John Cage September 12, 2012 | 12:30 pm
The life of John Cage produced in the style of his radio work, complete with bifurcating timeline. With performance artists Ellen Zweig and Tony Allard. Written by Dwight Frizzell and Jay Mandeville.Read More
Cage – Second Century September 5, 2012 | 12:30 pm
The 2nd century of John Milton Cage, composer, philosopher, humorist, and passionate mushroom enthusiast, is here, now, everywhere-at-once, and dwelling unshakably within the moving spirit of our own era. With the wit and intensity of John Cage's inspired attempts to open the Ears of Perception, are six present-day dreamquesters -- Patrick Clancy, Ellen Zweig, Cliff Baldwin, Jeffrey Ruckman, Ed Herrmann, and Dwight Frizzell.Read More
Dawn of the Elvisians August 22, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Dancing on the coat tails of an esoteric stream of religious healers, Gnostic agencies and dancing saviors, Elvis Presley is omnipresent in his voice and its intoned physicality. With the cittern of Gerald Trimble, voice of Rhondda Francis, love offering of Liz Amsbry, reportage of Laura Spencer, and original music by Ed Herrmann and Michael Henry.Read More
Elvis: A Space Odyssey August 15, 2012 | 12:30 pm
We deal with Elvis as a cultural icon, as a kind of transcendental outside‐time entity withmythological and sociological ramifications," Dwight Frizzell said...The program's Elvis music will be 'altered slightly' with mixing in of Olmec chants, Peruvian instrumentation and 'musique concrete,' which Frizzell called 'tape manipulated sounds from the environment.' "We're floating in post‐Elvisian free space, right now..’.”‐‐Brian McTavish,The Kansas City StarRead More
CONTACTING THE OTHER: Amazing Psychotropic Tales August 1, 2012 | 12:30 pm
In a very real ‘you are what you eat’ sense of the word, psycho‐active plants are us and we are them. Contacting the Other is just a mirror, but looking within may surprise us by its strangeness‐‐yet concomitantly reassure us with its primeval been‐there‐done‐that familiarity and amplitude.Read More
COUNTERCLOCK WORLDS of PHILIP K. DICK July 18, 2012 | 12:30 pm
The seminal sci‐fi author (“Bladerunner”) and pataphysician Philip K. Dick’s explorations of alternative worlds and techno‐dilemmas.Read More
Big Scary UFO Show July 11, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Curious acausal time‐links between the Children’s Crusade of 1212 AD Europe, a Killer Clown infestation in 1970’s Kansas City, and the 1897 airship flap in Aurora, Texas. Featuring Patrick Clancy, Rodney Franks, and composer Ed Herrmann.Read More
Programmer
Dwight Frizzell
Dwight Frizzell is an internationally recognized artist whose interdisciplinary work combines video, performance, installation, music, audio art and writing. He has been producing the “From Ark to Microchip” series with Jay Mandeville since 1984.
Read More
Dwight Frizzell is an internationally recognized artist whose interdisciplinary work combines video, performance, installation, music, audio art and writing. He has been producing the “From Ark to Microchip” series with Jay Mandeville since 1984.
Read More
