A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N DMasters of New Media : Lecture Series
RMIT Centre for Animation and Interactive Media Adventures in CyberSound: Always a Peter's Pal
by Russell Naughton
Adventures in CyberSound: Always a Peter's Pal The date was December 10, 1954 and it was my 8th birthday but, like any other day, after school duties always included listening to The Peter's Ice Cream Show. Hosted by Binnie Lum and Norman Swain ( also known as Billie and Binnie ) the show was for kids just like me, a 'Peter's Pal' and featured games, competitions, and best of all, birthday calls. Even as a quite worldly eight year old, radio was still somewhat pure magic. You sat next to this large ornate wooden box turned a knob which moved a black wire around a glowing yellow dial full of numbers and letters and out of the box came voices and music, all day long. Suddenly, the moment I'd been waiting for, time for the birthday calls. Would I get mentioned? - Of course not, how would they know that it was MY birthday, I hadn't told them.- The calls came out and well, I couldn't quite believe it, they announced that I, Russell Naughton had turned eight years old THAT day. But that wasn't the end of it, the best was yet to come. Binnie then announced that if I were to go out to the playroom, 'grown up' talk for the store room next to the garden shed, I would find a present. Well, I can be surprised but this was going to far - a present in the playroom, what did they take me for? Being eight years old did however mean that mercenary affairs could now take precedence over sheer disbelief and I raced out the back door, across the garden and threw open the 'playroom' door. On the chair, there it was, just as they said it would be, a present from Billy and Binnie. Some forty years later and nearly thirty of those years working for our national broadcaster, the ABC, radio still holds the same magic. Now, read on, explore and bye the way - if you ever find out how Billie and Binnie used to get in and out of that radio each day please send me an eMail and I'll pass it onto all the other Peter's Pals I know. Who is Russell Naughton? Hello, and as you might have guessed, my name is Russell Naughton. Thankyou for attending this series of lectures. I was born in Melbourne in 1946 and following my first stint at RMIT, I joined the ABC In 1968 as an assistant technician. Apart from some ten years working as a sound engineer/producer for ABC TV Entertainment, I have spent most of my career with ABC Radio. During the early 90's as well as my then formal role as head of production operations for Radio Australia, the overseas radio and television service of the ABC I worked as a consultant on the design of studio and other production and transmission technology facilities at our new headquarters in Southbank Boulevard. A Masters Degree - RMIT 'Take 2' In 1995 I was most fortunate to be accepted into the Master's Degree Program at RMIT's then most recent acquisition, The Centre for New Media Arts and under the directorship of Associate Professor John Bird late of Swinburne's Animation and Interactive Multimedia Centre. After much discussion with John Bird he also being my Senior Supervisor, I presented what turned out to be a successful project submission on Interactive On Line Audio Broadcast Services. To keep with the spirit of 'new media' speak it also gained the more `approachable' title - Adventures in CyberSound. Television without Pictures - Our Preoccupation with Visual Media I believe that we have allowed the visual technologies to almost dominate our media senses. Television was now such a part of our daily lives that radio or more specifically audio had in some ways shrunk in general acceptance as a valid medium. If you couldn't see an event then `obviously' how were you able to judge an outcome. Sure, audio is still a big part of our social structure but compared with Baywatch, Home Improvement and the X-Files, radio rates a very low peg on the ladder of the average family's media diet. Back to Basics - Our Audio Roots As well as my generalist beliefs, I have always been a personal devotee of the audio medium from those early Peter's Pal radio days ( sprinkled liberally with Dan Dare, Hop Harrigan, Biggles and The Lone Ranger ) right through my school cadet years in the Signal Corps, my first RMIT days struggling with valves and punched tape computing whilst playing in a rock and roll band four nights a week. Thirty years later and I might add, based once again in Building 9, home of my more junior Com. Eng. days, it was time to examine thoroughly how we listened, why we listened and most of all were we able to listen to what we wanted to hear when we wanted to hear it. Around the Campfire - Tales Tall and True The audio or really aural medium is as old as time itself. From the earliest days of human vocal communication there has always been the 'I know something you don't know and if you want, I'll tell you about it' scenario. Funnily enough, the tall tales still continue to be told around a fire it's just that these days the fire is gas powered, the meat is fresh from the local deli and the talk is of personal best cricket scores and specials at the local hardware retailer not of the last known sighting of the local sabre toothed tiger. Hear Ye, Hear Ye - The Town Crier As the camps grew into villages and then into towns the Town Crier came into existence. Here, the person of cocked hat, colourful cape and large bell appeared at fixed times to announce all things both serious and trivial. Whether he took listener 'feedback' or not is hard to say - I feel his major role was more likely just to spread the 'formal' edicts of the government of the day and in doing so, foreshadowed what we now have as 'radio' - "I've got something to say and if you happen to be listening you'll hear what it is" - sound familiar. I wonder how many times the wrong person heard the right news and skipped town or worse still the right person heard the wrong news and skipped town. Radio Somehow I don't think we've advanced much in the intervening 500 years. The radio stations commercial or otherwise create program of their own design and content. At a given time, they broadcast it blindly out into the ether and if you happen to be tuned in at that exact time, you hear what that particular station has decided you are to hear. This cannot be right. Surely the listener must regain control over what they wish to hear and at a time which they can listen ( I stress the difference here between hearing and listening ) whether it be from a professional or sociological point of view. Thus my project Adventures in CyberSound or the development of an Interactive On Line Audio Broadcast Service. Adventures in CyberSound I decided from the start that this project would have to be one of constant development and revision as the rate of change of technology in the communications field was now so rapid that decisions and thoughts of 1995 would be back there alongside the Triassic period by the new millennium. The Internet and more specifically the World Wide Web seemed the ideal platform for both investigative research as to what has been and what currently is the state of radio broadcasting as well as documenting a flexible look into the future. Adventures in CyberSound was thus born as a World Wide Web document able to be altered and updated as my studies progressed and most of all a technology able to utilise the latest multimedia technologies to cross all international communications barriers whether they be geographical or computational. In closing I welcome you to both access my project on the Internet and indeed add any comments by way of eMail regarding it's content, direction and method of delivery. Thankyou.
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