Case description

This case focuses on the ways in which sound and the radio medium is conceptualized and practiced as transnational in pre-WWII city portraits and in postwar artistic collaborations within The International Feature Conference and Ars Acoustica. Whereas radio in Europe has primarily been a national enterprise, artistic exchanges has been seen as a privileged area for experimentation with transnational radiophonic spheres. The case explores the institutional and aesthetic implications of such experiments.

ARS Acoustica timeline

• 1989: founded at EBU Radio Drama Conference, Florence with Klaus Schöning as spokesperson
• 1992: Radio Beyond (London)
• 1992: Ciudades Invisibles (Madrid)
• 1992: publishes Ars Acoustica EBU Selection 1991
• 1993: Wings of Sound (Helsinki)
• 1995: publishes Ars Acoustica International EBU Selection 1994 (documenting selections for exchange)
• 1995: Horizontal Radio
• 1995: online at www.thing.or.at/thing/orfkunstradio
• 1996: Rivers and Bridges
• 1997: Station to Station
• 2005: starts annual participation in Arts Birthday (Jan 17th)
• 2013: starts annually awarding the Palma Ars Acoustica. All enteries for the competition offered for broadcasting at participating European radio stations.

References

Anthologies

• Augaitis, Daina & Dan Lander (eds.) (1994): Radio Rethink: Art, Sound and Transmission. Canada: Walter Philips Gallery. 
• Föllmer, Golo & Sven Thiermann (eds.)(2006): Relating Radio: Communities, Aesthetics, Access. Beitragte zur Zukunft des Radios. Leipzig: Spector Books
• Grundmann, H; Zimmermann, E.; Braun, R.; Daniels D.; Hirsch, A.; Thurmann-Jajes, A (eds.) (2007): Re-inventing Radio – Aspects of Radio as Art. Frankfurt am Main: Revolver
• Kahn, Douglas and Gregory Whitehead (eds.) Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-garde, Massachusetts: MIT Press
• LaBelle, Brandon & Erik Granly Jensen (eds.) (2007): Radio Territories. Los Angeles: Errant Bodies Press. 
• Lander, Dan & Micah Lexier (eds.) (1990): Sound by Artists. Toronto: Art Metropole and Walter Philips Gallery 

Books

• Arnheim, Rudolf (1936/1972). Radio: An Art of Sound.  New York: Da Capo Press. (PDF – English, no German)
• Douglas, Susan J (1999): Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination, from Amos 'N' Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern. 1st ed.  New York: Times Books. (JK)
• Gilfillan, Daniel (2009): Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio, University of Minnesota Press (PDF)

Articles

• Apple, Jacki. “New American Radio and Radio Art,” New Radio Performing Arts, Inc., http://somewhere.org/NAR/writings/apple.htm (accessed September 14, 2015).
• Auferman, Knut (2010): ”Breaking the Airwaves” in The Wire issue 320, October 
• Barliant, Claire. “Stationary Flow: Process and Politics in Audio Art On the Air and Online,” New Radio Performing Arts, Inc., http://somewhere.org/NAR/writings/barliant.htm (accessed September 14, 2015). 
• *Black, Colin: ”An Overview of Spatialised Broadcasting Experiments with a Focus on Radio Art Practices” in Organised Sound 15.3, December 2010, 198-208 
• *Black, Colin: ” International Perspectives on the Historic Intersections of Electroacoustic Music and the Radio Medium” in Organised Sound, 2014, Vol.19 (2), pp.182-191 
• Cory, Mark E. (1994): "Soundplay. The polyphonous tradition of German radio art" in Douglas Kahn & Gregory Whitehead (eds.): Wireless Imagination. Sound, Radio, and the Avantgarde. Cambridge & London: MIT, pp. 331-371. 
• Douglas, Susan J. (1986): ”Amateur Operators and American Broadcasting: Shaping the Future of Radio”, in Joseph Corn (ed.): Imagining Tomorrow, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
• Dyson, Fraces (1994): ”Radio Art in Waves” in Leonardo Music Journal Vol. 4, pp. 9-11 
• Friz, Anna (2008): “Re-Enchanting Radio” in Cinema Journal, vol. 48, no. 1 
• Gilfillan, Daniel (2007): “Broadcast Space as Artistic Space. Transcultural Radio, Itenerant Thought, and the Global Sphere” in Grundmann, H; Zimmermann, E.; Braun, R.; Daniels D.; Hirsch, A.; Thurmann-Jajes, A (eds.): Re-inventing Radio – Aspects of Radio as Art. Frankfurt am Main: Revolver
• *Glandien, Kersten (2000): "Art on Air. a profile of new radio art" in Simon Emmerson (ed.): Music, Electronic Media and Culture Ashgate. 
• Glandien, Kersten (2013): Kunst i og uden for æteren
• *Grundmann, H., Josephine Bosma (1997): “Interview with Heidi Grundmann” http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/6/6178/1.html (accessed September 29, 2015) 
• *Grundmann, H. (2007): “Past and Present of Radio Art. A 1995 Perspective”, in Reinventing Radio – Aspects of Radio as Art. Revolver 
• Hagelüken, Andreas: Hörgeräuschmus Iksprachspiel: Eine Historische Ortsbestimmung der Radiokunst in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (1991-), Vol. 166, No. 4, MULTIMEDIAL & VERFRANST (JULI AUGUST 2005), pp. 34-36 
• Hall, Magz: "Radio Art Reflections 1, 2 & 3" in Sounding Out!
• Labelle, Brandon: ”Phantom Music: radio, memory and narratives from auditory life” in Organised Sound 11.1, April 2006. 
• *Lander, Dan (1994): “Radiocasting: Musings on Radio and Art” in Daina Augaitis and Dan Lander (ed.): Radio Rethink, Banff: Walter Philips Gallery. (http://www.ears.dmu.ac.uk/) 
• Schöning, Klaus (1991): "The Coutours of an Acoustical Art" in Theatre Journal vol. 43 no. 3, pp. 307-324. 
• Stricker, Jan (2013): avantgardens radio
• Stuhlmann, Andreas (ed.)( 2001): Radio-Kultur und Hör-Kunst. Zwischen Avantgarde und Popularkultur 1923-2001. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
• *Whitehead, Gregory (1992): “Out of the Dark: Notes on the Nobodies of Radio Art in Douglas Kahn and Gregory Whitehead (eds.) Wireless Imagination, Massachusetts: MIT Press 
• Zurbrugg, Nicholas (1998): ”Sound-Art, Radio-Art and Post-Radio Performance in Australia”, http://kunstradio.at/THEORIE/zurbrugg.html (September 29, 2015
• The International Radio Art Research Group, list of references
• Setup4 special issue on radio art

Works / documentation

• Ars Acoustica International. EBU Selection 1994. EBU UER, 1995 
• Horizontal Radio-cd. ORF Kunstradio, TRANSI-T & Ars Electronica Center 1996 
• 20 years EBU Ars Acustica 1989-2009-cd. OSA-BIEM, 2009 
• EBU Ard Acustica ART’s Birthsday 2005-2010-cd OSA-BIEM, 2010 
• Sound Drifting booklet and cd’s. Editor: Heidi Grundmann. Triton Verlag 2000 

Research

• Radio as Art (research project), see also: Radiokunst: Zur Entwicklung eines Mediums zwischen Ästhetik und sozio-kultureller Wirkungsgeschichte

Related

• Prix Italia (from 1949)
• International Features Conference (from 1974)
• Max Neuhaus: Radio Net, 1977 (see description af Media Art Net and at Kunstradio)
• Prix Europa (from 1987)
• RADIOTOPIA (2002)

City Portrait cases[edit]

• 9. november 1927: En Radio-Rejse gennem Europa. Retransmission fra Europæiske Stationer / A Radio voyage through Europe. Retransmissions from European Stations. Link to programme sheet in larm.fm here. Broadcast on DR 9/11 1927 8 p.m. - 12 p.m. See manuscript here: Media:A_Radio_voyage_through_Europe.pdf. 

• 21. March 1928: En Radio-Rejse gennem Europa. Retransmission fra Europæiske Stationer / A Radio voyage through Europa. Retransmissions from European Stations. Link to programme sheet in larm.fm here. Broadcast on DR 21/3 1928 8 p.m. - 12 p.m.

• 16. March 1930: En Rundtur i Oslo og Omegn / A round trip in Oslo and surroundings Broadcast simultaneously over Norwegian and Swedish senders – and two days later over Hamburg. 8 p.m. - 12 p.m.

• 1 April 1930: An Aften i Hamborg. Paa Streftog med Mikrofonen / An evening in Hamburg. Stroling with the Microphone Broadcast over Norwegian and Swedish stations (not in Germany?) 8 p.m. - 11 p.m.

• 8. April 1930: Paa besøg i Stockholm / Visiting Stockholm Broadcast over Norwegian senders and Hamburg 1.15 p.m.- 6 p.m.

• 5. December 1930: Vore Dages København i Radiofoniske Billeder / Contemporary Copenhagan in Radiophonic images Radiophonic portrait of Copenhagen by Emil Bønnelycke and others. Bradcast to Denmark only, but meant as a preparation for a series of European City Portraits. Link to program me sheet in lark.fm here. Broadcast 5/12 1930 8.35 p.m.-1 a.m.

• 6. May 1931: Transmission fra Hamborg over "Norddeucher Rundfunk" / Transmission from Hamburg over "Norddeucher Rundfunk" Link to programme sheet in larm.fm here. Broadcast on DR 6/5 1931 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Bi-lingual transmission. See Dahlerup 1945 pp. 94-97.

• 8. september 1931:  Nordtyskland paa Besøg i København / North-Germany visiting Copenhagen. Link to programme sheet in larm.fm here. Broadcast on DR 8/9 1931 8.00-12.00 p.m. Co-transmission between Danish Radio, Hamborg, Hannover,Bremen, Kiel, Flensborg og Berlin radio stations. 41.25 min sound accessible in larm.fm here.

• 31 january 1932: Europæiske Bybilleder. Stockholm / European Cityportraits. Stockholm. Link to programme sheet in larm.fm here. Broadcast in DR 31/1 7.57 p.m. to 11 p.m.

• 22 May 1932: Europæiske Bybilleder. Oslo / European Cityportraits. Oslo. Link to program me sheet in larm.fm here. Broadcast on DR 22/5 1932 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.