BRUSSELS February 2017

February 1, 2017 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on BRUSSELS February 2017

Sarah was invited to give a seminar on radio at the école de recherche graphique (erg) for their seminar atelier called ‘after empire‘. Under the title ‘Double Hertz Radio’ she brought two FM transmitters with her and led a one day workshop that started with the question ‘What is radio?’ and ended with a series of hilarious performances by the students within the erg building which utilised the two low power radio transmitters and a dozen portable receivers.

The art school has a tradition of working with the medium of radio. This was represented in several other radio related workshops and the set-up of a temporary student station called Radio Ergote that collaborated with Radio Panik in Brussels to access FM airtime.

In the Radio Ergote studio. Photo by Marc Wathieu

In the Radio Ergote studio. Photo by Marc Wathieu

STOCKHOLM May – June 2013

June 4, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on STOCKHOLM May – June 2013

We were invited by the artist group akcg to give a radio workshop at the artspace Konsthall C in a suburb of Stockholm













The idea was to offer practical skills and give some inspiration by showing an overview of radio art projects we have encountered and been involved with. The workshop ran over the course of a week and participants were an engaged group of local artists and political activists. One pair of artists wired up their dog with binaural microphones to create a canine sound exploration of the surrounding area. The workshop was designed to culminate in a two-hour live broadcast from Konsthall C on the largest community radio station in Stockholm








Alex Nowitz






The live broadcast from Konsthall C was the first radio show of the newly formed Centrifug Radio Populär. The name of the project reflects the other use of the building that Konsthall C shares – it is a working laundry for the neighbouring blocks of flats. We will return in September to carry out part two of the workshop


Tonic Train


Knut Aufermann
Johannes Bergmark
Sören Runolf



While we were in Stockholm we were able to take part in a few other events. We gave a concert at Fylkingen, which consisted of two duos and a quartet: Tonic Train & Fåglar av glas (Johannes Bergmark & Sören Runolf). Photos: akcg

We also managed to visit the famous Electronic Music Studio in the same building




City of Drizzle


Another reason for the timing of our visit was to take part in the launch of the latest OEI magazine. The edition includes a CD from Mobile Radio of a piece we made in São Paulo for Kunstradio. We were happy to help Cecilia and Jonas glue in the CDs to the cover. The piece is entitled City of Drizzle and reflects some of our experiences of working in Brazil:

Launch of OEI Magazine at Moderna Museet with an extended DJ set. Photo: akcg






We also gave an artist talk about Mobile Radio BSP at IASPIS together with OEI. Photos: akcg

BARROW June 2012

June 30, 2012 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on BARROW June 2012

Octopus Collective live broadcast to Lisbon from Peel View House in Barrow Park

The Octopus Collective is a Sound Arts and Music organisation based in Barrow, Cumbria in the UK, with its HQ in the former park keepers house in Barrow public park. Since 2009 we have delivered the FON Festival of music and sound arts, and a programme of commissions and education projects, working with artists from the USA, Europe and Japan including Mobile Radio, Faust, Richard Youngs, John Wall, AGF, Hildur Gudnadottir and others. Our interest in broadcast arts has led to collaborations with Tetsuo Kogawa, Haco, and an ongoing project with Mobile Radio who performed at our first festival in 2009.

For this commission we carried out a radio hacking workshop with the Octopus Collective Hacking Group, followed by a collective radio performance streamed live to the radio art festival RadiaLx 2012 in Lisbon, and finally a drone-based concert for assorted players around the building.













The hacking workshop needed to be short and sweet, as we only had half a day to get each person equipped with an interesting-sounding instrument to perform upon for the radio broadcast in the afternoon. Luckily, everyone was able to bring along an old or cheap radio (or two) which they didn’t mind dismantling. After a bit of trial and error short-circuiting the electronic components, each radio was able to make a range of tones, squealing, hissing or crackling sounds. Knut then conducted the group in a simple improvisation involving tuning the radios in and out of a home transmission frequency which broadcast radio feedback, and this was interspersed with solo spots on the newly discovered circuit-bent sounds








The radio show became an audio tour of Peel View House, led by Andrew Deakin. Each room was visited in turn to experience whatever brand of sonic exploration lay therein. When the hacking workshop room was reached, the group performed their mighty improvisation, before the roving microphone moved on to explore the basement where a percussion duo was taking place. Andrew narrated the tour of the work going on all over the house, including a touching account of his own audio obsessions during an examination of the noise-making objects crammed up to the rafters in his workroom. Throughout the hour-long show, pauses were made to play extracts from a few previous Octopus commissions by various visiting artists, and live backgrounds were supplied by tugging on a string at the radio desk which was attached to a guitar-string contact mic contraption hanging out of the window, made by Glenn Boulter – thanks also to Glenn for some of the photos on this page






The improvised drone concert featured action in all the various rooms and the performers were invited to move around the house to find other people to play with. The ancient harmonium in the music room provided a ready-made drone machine, and the most notable sonic landscape was supplied by John Hall’s set-up where he performed on violin, bastardised turntables, self-made records and assorted objects