Textual and audiophonic collage in Dutch and Flemish radio plays

Abstract

This chapter examines the radio play’s use of collage, one of the most prominent techniques of the (neo-)avant-garde. It distinguishes collage as an artistic principle from the ‘technical’ procedure of montage – an editing technique that lies at the heart of the medium – arguing that the ‘collage radio play’ actively goes against the streamlining principle that is characteristic of the prototypical radio play. Taking the radio play’s multimodality as a starting point, this chapter explores the productive interaction between ‘textual’ and ‘audiophonic’ collage. After a theoretical discussion of collage as a transmedial concept, the chapter presents a close reading of three radio plays from Flanders and the Netherlands. Collage plays a distinctive role in these pieces: an experimental radiophonic collage piece, a radio play adaptation of a literary collage work, and a more or less conventional narrative radio play that incorporates various ‘found’ fragments. The chapter shows that the specific constraints and affordances of the radio play add new dimensions to the collage technique. Additionally, it shows that the concept is productive for radio works that fall outside the scope of the avant-garde as well.