Leading into the podcast, I was met with an artist I was unfamiliar with and had never heard of before. The only representation I was given of Alessandro Cortini was his voice and what he had to say – making this truly undiluted sonic experience. From the very beginning, I noticed the podcast would be very informative, conversational. Being an interview, the podcast would also be very performative – the interviewer would purposefully and intentionally insert himself into the conversation, asking questions wherever necessary, creating a narrative, however, the subject had just as much control over the conversation – this wasn’t an interrogation.
The artist begins to go into detail on his work, outlining what he does and what his work is. In this sense, the subject is creating and developing the podcast, there doesn’t seem to be any bias or authoritarian input from the interviewer. The interviewer does not present his views or perspectives – rather asks questions to allow the subject to present theirs. In this way, a podcast and an audio paper seem to differentiate. I remember listening to one by Shanti Suki Osman – a visiting practitioner from last year – who presented her ideas through an amalgamation of music, interviews and dialogue really well, asking relevant questions without seeming controlling.