Audio Work 'Arueki' Launches: A Fictional Audio Documentary of Memory, 'Reading' a Notebook Left at a Vanishing Station

The podcast media 'White and Light Blue Carnation' has started distributing 'Arueki', a 5-episode audio work that depicts stories of memory using only voice and environmental sounds, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms.

'Arueki' is a fictional audio documentary set at a small station that will soon disappear due to redevelopment. Someone who learned the station would be gone placed a notebook on the platform. People who use the station, including nearby residents and visitors from afar, write down their thoughts and feelings in it. The narrator quietly reads the notebook in the 'present'. The work explores points of connection in someone's memory, things that have already been forgotten, or that perhaps even the writer of the notebook may have forgotten, left behind by so much information that it might be forgotten by tomorrow.

Fragments of Memory Scattered Throughout the Work The notebook, voice, and background sounds in the work are linked, with many gimmicks embedded. The background features sounds of the 'present' – wind, grass and trees, footsteps – overlapping with words from the past. It has a multi-layered structure where listeners realize what those sounds were after finishing. The script also references memories of real routes, such as stations and local lines that have disappeared. It is an attempt to create an epistolary, documentary-style audio fiction using the quietness and space of the Japanese language, neither a reading nor a radio drama.

Features of the Work 01. The Form of 'Reading' with Voice Rather than acting, the narrator quietly reads the words left in the notebook. The work values a sense of distance, as if re-reading someone's memories now. 02. Background Sounds are All 'Sounds of the Present' The background features environmental sounds recorded in 2026 – wind, grass and trees, footsteps. The present sounds enveloping the past stories also have a leading role. 03. Referencing Real Landscapes While set at a fictional station, the work references memories of real landscapes, such as stations and local lines that have disappeared. 04. A 'Fictional Audio Documentary' Still Rare in Japan Neither a reading nor a radio drama, this is an epistolary, documentary-style audio fiction. It expresses a format that is developing overseas using the quietness and space of the Japanese language.

Season 1: 5 Episodes Episode 01 'Memories of Dawn' Tuesday, December 8th, the beginning notebook. Students, childhood memories, strangers, a procession of various words. Episode 02 'Memories of Flowers' Pages from Thursday, December 10th. Cherry blossoms, the last spring day, photos of flowers blooming in winter. Station light, rain and sleepers. Seasons and memories associated with the station. Episode 03 'Memories of Sirius' A cassette tape recording of an event that happened at this station 20 years ago. A faint bluish light in the cold, dark night sky, vision is uncertain, but when I noticed, I was in the light. (Narration: Freelance announcer Manami Besshi) Episode 04 'Memories of Forgiveness' Pages from Thursday, December 17th. Changing scenery, hands, shops closing down. Unborn lives, various farewells, and each person's tomorrow. Episode 05 'Memories of Time' Thursday, December 20th, the year-end. The last words left in the notebook. At the station with no one left, someone looks up at the sky. Today again, the ghosts of memory overlap and disappear into some time and place.

About the Artwork The artwork uses a painting based on a film photograph taken with multiple exposures. It overlays station and cityscapes to express the image of a 'station' becoming vague in memory. 'Arueki' is a work where words left in a notebook and present-day sounds intersect. The artwork also takes as its motif a multi-layered structure where different times, different places, and traces of people overlap. Like ghosts, they pass by, pass through, and eventually disappear. A landscape of nameless memories left within the city.

Author: Ryota Suzuki Representative of Rin Inc. / Graphic Designer / Host of the podcast media 'White and Light Blue Carnation'. He has produced an audio archive of over 500 episodes since July 2013, including the chat program 'Nichijo Tsurezure', the environmental sound program 'Sounds for Sleepless Nights', and the history program 'Ancestor Pilgrimage'. He continues his activities to light a lamp of 'context' in an increasingly efficiency-driven modern age.

Distribution Information Title: 或る駅 (Arueki) English notation: Arueki Format: Podcast / Audio work Number of episodes: Season 1, 5 episodes Distribution platforms: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and others Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3REZT0k Spotify: https://sptfy.com/Qcjd Special website: https://arueki.carnation.jp/ Contact: [email protected] Copyright © SMC All Rights Reserved.