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Show 0814: RADIO ECOLOGIES – LOST IN TRANSMISSION by KATE DONOVAN & GABI SCHAFFNER (radio x)
RADIO ECOLOGIES
… is a Radio Art piece by Kate Donovan, 2020, with narration by Molly Donovan Higham.
In this piece, radio is acknowledged as a natural as well as a human-made phenomena, that is interconnected and active across species
and scales. The work asks: How does an expanded perspective impact our imagination of radio in the future?
In the beginning, there was radio.
Some say that there was a quickening, and that the Earth’s core bubbled and burped to release the egg, and that the soft, brittle egg cracked to release the worm – the double worm of two entwined in one – to let it slither out and go underground, to disperse through all the elements and up through the aether, burrowing down and emerging up at the same time.
But the sun and rocks and stars know that there was radio even before that.
And nuclear waste (among other things) will go on to tell our more-than-human successors that there will still be radio, even then.
LOST IN TRANSMISSION
… is a collaborative piece by Kate Donovan and Gabi Schaffner; editing and sound design: Gabi Schaffner.
How can we conceive of an expedition in non-territorial terms? Can we read the signals of our ecosphere? What if a reed turns out to be an antenna? Kate Donovan and Gabi Schaffner venture into the water retention basin of the Tempelhofer Feld, Berlin: at times an idyllic lake, sometimes a swampland the size of a football field, this body of water fluctuates between effective area and dreamscape, biomass and place of retreat.
KATE DONOVAN
is a practicing radio artist, facilitator and researcher based in Berlin. Her artistic practice deals with radio in an elemental sense, in terms of frequency, transmission and interconnectedness (but also disruption and interference). Her editorial and organisational work in free and community radio fosters inclusion and experimentation.
Recent and current projects include: Datscha Radio 17, a garden radio art festival on the future of the garden in the Anthropocene; ‘The Bespoke Headpiece’, a speculative telling of radio history which was developed during a transmission arts residency at Wave Farm in 2018; and the ongoing radio show ‘elements’, which broadcasts monthly via CoLaboRadio, on FM in Berlin and Potsdam, and online.
GABI SCHAFFNER
works as an interdisciplinary artist in the field of visionary documentation, poetics and sound art. Traveling forms a vital part of her artistic practice – as a source for sound and language recordings but also as “a rite of passage” enabling the artist to explore alternative narrative structures. Her works in the field of sound and radio art have been broadcast internationally, including commissions by Deutschlandradio, SWR, ABC Australia and many more. Besides radio she has realized site-specific projects and exhibitions in India, Australia, Iceland, Spain, Finland, France and, most recently, Taiwan. Her collaborative project Datscha Radio – of which Kate Donovan also forms part – won the Award of the Berlin Network of Free Project Spaces and Initiatives 2019.
Find out more about DATSCHA RADIO at www.datscharadio.de
credits:
great many thanks to KATE DONOVAN & GABI SCHAFFNER for RADIO ECOLOGIES – LOST IN TRANSMISSION!
metadata:
RADIO ECOLOGIES – LOST IN TRANSMISSION – by KATE DONOVAN & GABI SCHAFFNER
radia production: miss.gunst [GUNST + radiator x]
production date: october 2020
station: radio x, frankfurt am main (germany)
length: 28 min.
licence: (cc-by-nc) KATE DONOVAN & GABI SCHAFFNER
www.radiox.de – www.gunst.info – www.datscharadio.de
additional info:
includes radia jingles (in/out), station and program info/intro (english)
links:
radio x & radiator x: www.radiox.de – www.radiox.de/radiator-x
GUNSTradio & radiator x: www.gunst.info – www.gunst.info/radiator
Datscha Radio: www.datscharadio.de
pic:
(c) Gabi Schaffner 2020
Show 0777: Makhtesh Ramon by Møn feat. Alina Sauernheimer for Sphere Radio (Guest Slot)
One night and one day in the world's largest erosion crater in the Negev desert, Israel.
Absolute silence, only noises from Dingo's sniffing our tent in search of something edible. Unreal dreams and then, get up.
It is 4:00 o’clock in the morning, time to get up to reach the hike to the top of the next mountain before sunrise and to follow the play of shapes, light and noiselessness.
Is there a more peaceful place? Even the shape of the crater looks like a heart …
No one except us as far as the eye can see. No noise, no wind, only silence and a sky full of incredible colors.
We sit, about 20 minutes and I think to myself: "This is probably the quietest place I have ever been". And as if I had conjured it up, suddenly an unreal deep roar from nowhere. What's this? First, amazement, a little uncertainty, then: “Oh no, they're jet fighters. Jet fighters who will probably practice their next missions.
Disillusionment spreads, the throw back to reality. We are only 350 km away from Syria. Are they the sent to war? The situation becomes even more surreal than it already was and the recording device that I had initially switched on to record the silence now documents the play of sound and crater in which every sound that gets stuck in it, is thrown back in all directions. A unreal compositions of Echoes from all directions made by Jetfighters breaking the sound barrier.
This moment raised a lot of questions in me and I had the feeling that another level was needed to make the experience felt. So we decided to make a kind of radio play out of it and to use the recording as the basis for the it´s text.
So it happened that I asked my friend Alina about her interest, she was immediately into it and I sent her the recording + a few situation anecdotes and she wrote down what happened to her during listening. In the end, this text came out.
Credits:
Recording, production and idea: Møn (Simon Clement)
Text and voice: Alina Sauernheimer
Mastering: Leon Seidl
Picture: Omri Shmulewitz
