Helen Thorington

Helen Louise Thorington (November 16, 1928 – April 13, 2023) was an American radio artist, composer, performer, net artist and writer.

She was the daughter of Richard Wainwright Thorington and Katherine Louise (Moffat) Thorington, and sister of Richard W. Thorington Jr. She was a graduate of The Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and Wellesley College (1950).

After graduating with a BA in Biblical History, and attending Union Theological Seminary, New York (1951), Thorington discovered her passion for English literature.

She studied English Literature at the University of Minnesota (1956–1958); continued with Special Studies in the English Comic Novel taught by John Bayley (writer), New College, Oxford University, England (1959–1961); and completed coursework for a PhD in English literature at Rutgers University (1965–1967).

She compiled the index for Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood by Margaret Mead, and worked as a copy editor at G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Thorington died of complications of Alzheimer's disease on April 13, 2023, at the age of 94.

Thorington wrote and published experimental fiction and art criticism.

She published short stories and other fiction in the 1970s.

Thorington became a participant in the experimental dance scene when she met Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane through the American Dance Asylum (ADA), which they formed with Lois Welk in the late 1970s.

After the ADA moved to Binghamton, New York, Thorington created the sound score for Welk's Matrix, which was performed in concert at the Robeson Center (Binghamton) and The Warren Street Performance Loft (New York City); and The Parking Ramp Dance, which was performed on Henry and Waters Streets' parking ramp, Binghamton.

Her early scores for Jones and Zane included the trilogy Monkey Run Road, Blauvelt Mountain, and Valley Cottage.

Two of these works were revived for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's 20th anniversary performances at Jacob's Pillow (MA) and The Kitchen (NY).

After publishing Adventures at Frog Hollow in 1973, she was invited to produce a musical version for Towanda Performing Arts, Towanda, Pennsylvania.

Thorington began composing in 1974; her first works were aired on National Public Radio on such programs as Options, Voices in the Wind, and All Things Considered.

Having no musical experience, she learned how to use an EML 101 Synthesizer and began creating her own compositions, including Trying to Think (1974) which influenced such artists as Laurie Anderson and Jacki Apple.

Later, she began doing her own Field recordings − bats, oil pumps, trains, parrots, frogs − which she mixed with her synthetic sounds, her own and others' voices, and solo improvisations by musicians such as violinist Aurora Manuel ("Piece for Oil Pump and Violin"); cellist Deidre Murray ("Dracula's Wives"); and accordionist Guy Klucsevek ("North Country").

Thorington described her approach to sound this way: "My focus ... has been on radiophonic space. One of the things that distinguishes the electronic media is the ability to separate sound from its source, to remove environmental sound from its location, vocal sound from a person; to be able to cut, manipulate, and alter it in the creation of another kind of work. I liken this to the science of gene manipulation. We've reduced — or, I as a practicing radio artist, reduce — sound to sound data. I am not concerned that it's music, that it's an environment, that it's voice."

The Longest Story: A Work in Progress for Adding Machine Tape (1975) was published in Sixth Assembling/A Collection of Otherwise Unpublishable Manuscripts, compiled by Henry Korn, Richard Kostelanetz and Mike Metz.

In February 2021 her essay “The Making of American Radio Art” was published in PAJ (journal) by MIT Press.

Written in 1977, The Author's Story (November 15) was published in Lost Areas by Oil Books, Sugar Run, Pennsylvania.

National Public Radio (US) purchased it, and it was among the first radio art works broadcast nationally (1977).

Thorington was also commissioned by RAI (Italian radio), RNE (Spanish Radio) and ORF (Austrian radio).

Her collaborators included Suzan-Lori Parks, Regine Beyer, Shelley Hirsch, Pamela Z, Agnieszka Waligorska and Sarah Montague.

In 1978, she began composing music for dance, collaborating with Bill T. Jones, Arnie Zane, and Lois Welk.

She has performed nationally, including at Kennedy Center, Jacob's Pillow, Dance Theatre Workshop, and The Kitchen.

The Story, which aired on Public Radio in 1979, was published in Chelsea 36 (1977) and Chelsea 38 (1979).

In 1979, independent public radio producer Larry Josephson invited Thorington to the Airlie Seminar on the Art of Radio in Quantico, Virginia, where she premiered Dream Sequence.

Thorington created the score for Jones' Echo (1979); Sisyphus (1980); and Open Places, a "group work" at the Battery Park Landfill, New York City.

She also collaborated with choreographers Victoria Marks, Susan Salanger, Peter Anastos, and Julie Wright.

She was also the founder of New Radio and Performing Arts (1981), a nonprofit organization based in New York City; the founder and executive producer of New American Radio (1987–1998); and the founder and co-director of Turbulence.org (1996–2016).

Thorington spoke at international Radio art conferences and served as the Radio Editor for EAR Magazine from 1987 to 1989.

She also curated the CD series Radius which was dedicated to presenting experimental works made for radio broadcast to a wider audience.

Her documentaries, dramas, and sound compositions have been aired on radio, internationally, for the past thirty-five years.

The New American Radio archive is now in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress.

Thorington began creating Internet art in the mid-1990s, co-producing several multimedia, hypertext narratives and networked performances that culminated in an installation of the seminal work, Adrift, at The New Museum in 2001.

Helen Thorington (nickname "Teedy") was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.

Thorington co-authored with Jacki Apple the limited edition artist's book, The Tower in 2015; published in Contemporary Music Review; and was commissioned by Tate Modern, London (2008) to write Radio, Art, Life: New Contexts.

Her essays have been published in several books, including First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game and Unsitely Aesthetics - Uncertain Practices In Contemporary Art.

Thorington found her way to sound through her writing.

Rip on/off (Switzerland) published a collection of Thorington's texts, Il est si difficile de trouver le commencement, in 2017.