Listening Session: Seeing Through Flames: Astro-Darien by Steve Goodman

This session will be led by Steve Goodman (Kode9) and will explore themes of sound, science fiction, colonialism and utopia through a close listening to, and contextualisation of, his recent work Astro-Darien, a 26 minute sonic fiction which plays with the medium and method of the audio essay, an approach that sits between experimental music and sound design, radiophonic drama, documentary fiction and essay film. Astro-Darien is a sonic fiction about simulation, the Scottish Space Program and the ghosts of the British Empire which spirals between the role of the catastrophic Darien Scheme in the late 17th century in the founding of the UK, when Scotland failed to colonise part of present-day Panama, and the contemporary disintegration of the union and movement for Scottish independence. From a Caledonian heart of darkness to a supernova Scotia? Aside from a LP release, the project has also appeared as an audio visual installation featuring animation from artist and collaborator Lawrence Lek.