Featuring:
Henriett Pálházy
Henriett Pálházy
2026
Featured Transmission(s):
- Airing on May 23rd 17:00 CEST
- A Cheap Thrill Might Cost a Lot
- Genre: Live Performance, Live Radio Art, Radio Drama
- Duration: 30 min
- Streaming live from: Institute of Sonology, New Music Lab
-
Cheap Thrill Might Cost a Lot is a 15-minute live audio drama/radio play/radio opera that draws on the traditions of 1940s U.S. radio performance, reimagined through contemporary sound practices and minimalist opera. The format of the piece is live performance, designed in a way that it can simultaneously be experienced in person and through broadcast. A single performer (actress or singer) produces foley in real time while their voice is electronically processed using software such as Max/MSP or SuperCollider. The audience witnesses both the construction of sound and its mediated, broadcasted form. At its core, the piece circles around the ideas of repetition, difference, and systemic failure. It is structured in three acts, each presenting the same situation exploring three distinct states. Rather than progressing
narratively, the work goes round and round, returning to the same point under altered internal conditions presented by the performer. Central to the piece is the construction of a closed system of gestures and sounds. Through foley play and vocal processing, the performer operates within a set of rules that generate repetition across both physical action and sonic composition. These systems are deliberately constructed in a way, that a simple task that the performer wants to complete, cannot be executed. Each attempt to resolve or exit the situation results instead in renewed iteration, variation, or breakdown. In this sense, the work stages and investigates emotional labour as a loop: effort is continuously produced, adjusted, and intensified, yet structurally prevented from reaching resolution. A recurring sonic motif governs the compositional structure which reappears in each act, undergoing variations.
Alongside live performance, processing and mixing, the piece incorporates fixed media elements to frame the piece’s dramaturgy and to support timing.
