Foil: the track or scent of a hunted animal
In this three-part experimental radio series, Beth Robertson investigates the act of recording as a site of haunting.
Framed as a series of ghostly encounters, the stories explore recording as a practice of remembering, one that isn’t unique to humans. Characters track and trace sounds as both presence and absence, reimagining what it means to listen. A museum host becomes obsessed with the silence of her building after hours, and begins recording it in an attempt to reach whatever lies behind that silence — only to find herself listening, over and over, to the sound of recording, or perhaps to the silence of being listened to. In a derelict hospital prized for its biodiversity, two recordists sneak in to capture its wildlife, but when their equipment cuts out, a strange scratching sound lures one of them up to the higher floors. And in a gallery, after an invigilator glimpses a mysterious figure in the corner of the room, the staff come together to investigate what they assume is a ghost — until they discover that more than ghosts can haunt you.
Foil Tracks follows the traces of hauntings and huntings, residues, silences, and voiceless utterance — and the unease of being caught recording. Sound as a medium blurs the boundary between things: the recorder becomes the recorded, the storyteller becomes the listener. Listeners are invited to encounter the radio not as a listening apparatus, but as a site where hauntings and huntings take shape.
Opening: Thursday 8 October, 5.30pm with refreshments from Liberty Breweries
Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 4pm
Closes: Saturday 21 November
Streaming online at afm.org.nz
https://afm.org.nz/BETH-ROBERTSON-Foil-Tracks
https://www.audiofoundation.org.nz/programmes/exhibitions/beth-robertson-foil-tracks
