Have you ever wondered what animals are saying? Using Australian wildlife field recordings, this techno-seance-style immersive audio experience offers speculative messages from creatures threatened with extinction.

Placing a small audience within a circle of shelves stacked with old valve radios, plus some other obsolete audio-visual technology, The Enormous Radio taps into techno-spiritualism – which has a surprisingly long history, from Thomas Edison’s “spirit phone” to today’s AI “deadbots”.

The Enormus Radio. Image © Sarah Walker

It’s co-created by director Roslyn Oades and sound artist Bob Scott (their COVID-delayed Nightline recently appeared at the Malthouse), in collaboration with technicians and designers including Matt Milne (lighting programmer) and Jenny Hector (production designer).

An inventive, superficially random but actually carefully crafted 40-minute soundscape emerges from the vintage radios, as well as unseen speakers beyond that enhance intensity, layering and dimensionality.

The radios, plus some old oscilloscopes and small monitors, have been hacked so they operate as a collective both aurally and visually: displays glow (revealing long lost radio stations like 3LO and 3XY) and some dials and indicators move.

Additional lighting including desk lamps are...