I listened to to 2 chosen podcasts, linked below.

The Audio Paper Manifesto:

1. The audio paper affords performative aesthetics.
2. The audio paper is idiosyncratic.
3. The audio paper is situated and partial.
4. The audio paper renders affects and sensations.
5. The audio paper is multifocal; it assembles diverse and often heterogeneous voices.
6. The audio paper has multiple protagonists, narrators and material agencies.
7. The audio paper brings aesthetics and technologies together in mediation.
8. The audio paper is a constituent part of larger ecologies.

“The cult of Aphex Twin” is an audio mini-documentary about Aphex Twin. It is being told from the perspective of an author who through the montage of some archival recordings, interviews and testimonies of people who knew the musician interwoven by his work, from the famous ones to those less known, more obscure pieces.

1., 7. -The performative style of this podcast is achieved by a very clever editing of interviews and music. I like that it is not heavily performed, just naturally one part falls into another and everything makes sense. The spoken parts always complete the music part perfectly, telling the story alternately.

2- Idiosyncraticy of this recording is apparent from the very beginning, the author is clearly amazed, inspired and bewitched by Aphex Twins music, DJ-ing and performance.

3. – this one has proved very difficult for me, as I tried to understand the meaning of “situated and partial” but ended up getting entangled in many definitions, some of them contradicting each other, at least this is how it felt at the time. I stumbled upon this academic work:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~burback/noema/ct/control.html

In the Background section, the author is comparing the rationalistic approach and hermeneutics in the context of technology and science. Rational tradition requires the decomposition of complex systems into simpler parts in order to understand the system.

Hermeneutics define the system as an interpretation, depending on the context and environment. Therefore, the understanding of neither the components nor the whole system is fully possible. Knowledge remains incomplete (partial). “The whole system defines to exists a hermeneutic circle where there are no absolute facts but only interpretations of content within a context”.

“Hermeneutic circles are like fast spinning toy top. An external observer, one outside the toy top, is given the tasks of riding, or understanding, the toy top. His first attempt is to step onto the toy top and is immediately thrown off. To be successful, first the observer must gain momentum, and match the motion of the toy top, and then, step onto the toy top. One can’t understand the hermeneutic circle without first understanding the whole.”

Podcast is in my opinion partial and situated. The author uses Aphex’s tunes in production of the podcast, although he never managed to interview Richard himself. Interview are held in obscure locations, we can hear the sounds of clinging glasses in a cafe, loud, panned music while talking about the live performance.

The author is aware of the imperfection and faults of his methods of research. He (and others interviews in the podcast) are never entirely sure if Apex Twin is telling the truth. The large number of legends that he never denied or started/fuelled himself and the story about Aphex walking among the audience and smiling during his own performance, while performing on stage at the same time are a great example of partiality.

4. Affects and sensations

5., 6. Interviews and recollection of the live gigs, memories of friends and co-workers.

8. Podcast is ending by hypothetical fax that author would send to Richard.

Summarising I think the above podcast can be called an audio paper without a doubt. It’s creative, very well mixed and witty, using technology to emphasise the topic and also reflects on it’s own methodology.