RADIO ECOLOGIES – LOST IN TRANSMISSION

by KATE DONOVAN & GABI SCHAFFNER

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