The Enormous Radio

An uncanny audio encounter with the animal world.

PRESENTED BY THE SUBSTATION, CHAMBER MADE & MELBOURNE FRINGE

Chamber Made's The Enormous Radio is a new large-scale immersive audio experience by artists Roslyn Oades and Bob Scott with collaborators. A ring of old radios replete with glowing dials, crackling speakers and twitchy antennas fill The Substation Main Space. This strange hive has been hacked, revived and repurposed to operate as an interconnected machine-medium capable of seeking, receiving, translating and transmitting uncanny messages from the animal world.

Drawing on Australian wildlife field-recordings, spatialised composition, translation software, and techno-spiritualism, the installation conjures haunted transmissions that speculate on the possibility of interspecies communication. As acoustic ecologists make breakthroughs in deciphering animal languages, this work asks: what if we could tune into the non-human, the endangered, and the wild? What might they say?

In the time of human-made climate emergency, The Enormous Radio stokes our longing to connect and tune into the unknown and the wild.

At the heart of this project is an ongoing collaboration between innovative documentary theatre maker Roslyn Oades and internationally acclaimed sound artist Bob Scott, whose combined skill set spans documentary, sound design, composition, expanded theatre, installation and immersive design. Their previous theatrical installation experience, The Nightline, was presented by Malthouse Theatre in August 2026. On The Enormous Radio they are joined by creative technologist Kevan Atkins, production designer Jenny Hector and text dramaturg Sarah Walker.