Radiophonic Spaces / Der Ohrenmensch

About 100 years ago, the radio began to change our listening habits and to revolutionize the cultural techniques of transmission and reception. Increasingly, the sounds in the world were technically mediated. The term “radiophonic” describes a mutually modifying relationship between this mediated perception and what is being historically considered noise or sound. In the radiophonic environment, not only the boundaries between noise and sound shift, but also those between device and idea, transmitter and receiver. Since the beginning of digitization, the radio has been in transition. While radio art migrates to other media, the possibilities and occurrences of transmission and reception are multiplying.

In the walk-in radio archive Radiophonic Spaces, more than 200 works of German and international radio art spanning 100 years can be heard and explored. These works of radio art compiled by Nathalie Singer from the Bauhaus-University Weimar, can be publicly heard in the condensed form of thirteen narratives. Its immersive spatial design enables visitors to experience composition methods and experiments, apparatus and discourses around the radio.

The three-day opening event Der Ohrenmensch will introduce the radio archive with a program discovering the knowledge of listening. International artists and researchers will use experimental formats to explore the aesthetic and theoretical conditions of the radiophonic environment. A Radiophonic Funkkolleg (Radio College) addresses listening knowledge and how it is expressed ever anew in the acoustic experience. In Explorations, artists and radio professionals are invited to examine the radio artworks in the walk-in radio archive with regard to radiophonic topics, while concerts and performances survey the musical possibilities of the radiophonic space. Among many other contributors, the historian of science Lino Camprubí will examine radio technology as a means of locating and navigating in the Mediterranean, the composer Beatriz Ferreyra will enter into a musical dialogue with studio and tape technology and the artist Emeka Ogboh will bring together the soundscapes of Lagos and Berlin in the auditorium of HKW.

After the opening event, Radiophonic Spaces will continue to be regularly activated: between Thursday and Monday at 5pm there will be talks, lectures, performances, guided tours, film screenings, or joint listening sessions.

Please listen to the teaser here. 

Radiophonic Spaces with works by Ammer & Console, Alessandro Bosetti, Andrea Cohen and Diego Losa, John Cage, Ferdinand Kriwet, Christina Kubisch, Friederike Mayröcker, Michaela Melián, László Moholy-Nagy, Kaye Mortley, Olaf Nicolai, Georges Perec, Paul Plamper, Milo Rau, Walter Ruttmann, Carl Sagan, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Eran Schaerf, Dziga Vertov, Ror Wolf, and many others.

Der Ohrenmensch with contributions by ARK (Johannes Ismaiel-Wendt, Sebastian Kunas, Malte Pelleter), Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro and Gilles Aubry, Hermann Bohlen, Lino Camprubí, Cevdet Erek, Wolfgang Ernst, Beatriz Ferreyra, Marie Guérin, Wolfgang Hagen, Alexandra Hui, Hassan Khan, Sebastian Kunas, Verena Kuni, Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman, Flora Lysen, Stefan Maier, Mara Mills, Nástio Mosquito, Marko Peljhan, Marina Rosenfeld, Viktoria Tkaczyk, Zoran Terzić, Sarah Washington, Anna Zett, Elisabeth Zimmermann, and others.

Radiophonic Spaces is a project by the chair of Experimental Radio at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar as part of Radiophonic Cultures (SNSF Sinergia Research Project) in cooperation with HKW and Museum Tinguely, Basel. The walk-in radio archive will be shown in the Museum Tinguely from October 23, 2018–January 27, 2019 and in the University Library Weimar from July 26–September 19, 2019.

The walk-in radio archive Radiophonic Spaces was conceived by Nathalie Singer in collaboration with a team of radio experts.

Co-organizer: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Südwestrundfunk (SWR), Westdeutscher Rundfunk  (WDR). With the kind support of international broadcasters and radio archives.

Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), State Chancellery of Thuringia, Hertie- Stiftung, Fonds Bauhaus100 of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Goethe-Institut, Hanna and Dieter Paulmann.

Der Ohrenmensch is a project by HKW in cooperation with the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and will open Radiophonic Spaces at HKW. Der Ohrenmensch was conceived by Katrin Klingan and Janek Müller.  

Radiophonic Spaces is taking place at HKW as part of 100 Years of Now, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media based on a ruling by the German Bundestag. Haus der Kulturen der Welt is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as well as by the Federal Foreign Office.

Press contact:
Timur Alexander El Rafie, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, T +49 (0)30 39787 165, presse [​at​] hkw.de