PILOT Episode 1
Soft Shell Radio, brought to you by the MLitt Art Writing students at The Glasgow School of Art and the MLitt Creative Writing students at the University of Glasgow.
Maria Howard, Introduction (Soft Shell)
When the name was first suggested, I googled it. Those two words, soft and shell, resulted in links to buy lightweight jackets, the kind you would want to pack in your bag for a summer’s day on the hills when the weather could just turn. I always thought it meant that we, artists and writers still finding our way, would require protection and careful handling, in the way that a baby’s head must be given special attention for the first few months of its life because its skull, which is still forming, is soft. Then, like all names that are used often, I forgot about its meaning. Upon repetition, upon becoming a shorthand for something, it lost its original power and gained new resonance as part of our shared language. But now, forced into this new way of being, all manner of things are looked at from a different angle. In the act of trying to hold onto each other at a distance the shell has moved from being an outer layer of protection to a physical object that when held gives the speaker an audience, and when lifted and listened to, echoes back the sound of the sea between your ears. These kinds of shells are hard like bone, like teeth, like nails, but like all those things, they echo back the press of flesh in their brittle polish. Stroke the inside of a conch, the lip of a hermit crab’s discarded home, and it is like the inside of a cat’s ear, soft and attentive.
Credits:
0:00 – 1:18 / Maria Howard, Introduction (Soft Shell) / mariahoward.org
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2:05 – 4:05 / Jessica Faith Cooper, Ceramics (2:05–2:48), Wine (2:52–3;28), Cliché (3:30–4:05) / twitter.com/jessicafcooper
4:08 – 5:36 / Jeehan Ashercook, Again we go to Sea
5:40 – 11:41 / Adrien Howard & Kat Patrick, Floating Methods /instagram.com/______adrien, instagram.com/k_.patrick
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12:00 – 14:10 / Siuán NiDhochartaigh, Castle Lawn
14:12 – 19:13 / Jessica Higgins, Honey / instagram.com/jessica_higgins_
19:14 – 21:34 / Jen Martin, what are you really doing? / jen-martin.com
21:35 – 23:37 / Lorna Ough, An extract from Bad Raisins and Rotting Leaves – Notes on Eating and Being Eaten
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23:52 – 27:30 / Timothea Armour, Transcript, December 2019 / timotheaawarmour.hotglue.me
27:32 – 30:14 / Maria Sledmere, Low Quality Lovely Broadway (27:32 – 28:51), Glitch Meridian (28:56 – 30:14) / musingsbymaria.wordpress.com
30:20 – 31:20 / Sara O’Brien, ( O )
31:22 – 33:54 / Camille Cornu, Untitled text / instagram.com/camillecornu
33:57 – 35:36 / Carolyn Hashimoto, Permanent Blues / carolynhashimoto.com
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36:19 – 39:15 / Megan Rudden, Observations on the End / meganrudden.co.uk
This podcast was produced by students of Art Writing: Timothea Armour, Maria Howard and Jen Martin. The show was edited by Jen Martin and artwork by Megan Rudden.