HALLE (SAALE) October 2016

October 30, 2016 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on HALLE (SAALE) October 2016

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Radio Revolten was the largest festival dedicated to radio art worldwide. As artistic director and co-curators we were involved in all stages and aspects of the festival and temporarily relocated to Halle to help with the organisation.

The scope of the month-long festival included daily performances, more than a dozen installations, two exhibitions, a 24/7 radio station, a conference and several international meetings and much more by nearly a hundred artists from around the world. In April 2018 a documentation in book form will be published by Spector Books. The festival’s website now acts as an archive of the proceedings and contains specific audio-visual archive pages for our own activities as part of the programme. Click here to view this for Sarah or Knut.

Below are audio excerpts of Knut’s silence detection radio installation “Changing of the Guard” and Sarah’s three frequency broadcast “In the Air We Share”.

PRAGUE April – May 2016

May 1, 2016 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on PRAGUE April – May 2016

The invitation for a short residency by the Agosto Foundation culminated in a feedback workshop and a Tonic Train performance at their vs. Interpretation festival. We used this generous invitation to experience almost all of the multifarious events that the 5-day-festival programme offered. The videos below documents only a fraction of the concerts, talks, performances, installations, theatre plays and locations that were unlocked for the audience in Prague, plus a rare interview with Sarah. What a great festival!

VIENNA January 2016

January 17, 2016 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on VIENNA January 2016

On 17th of January many radio stations in Europe celebrate Art’s Birthday. In 2016 Kunstradio invited an illustrious group of performers to their beautiful old broadcast hall to celebrate the occasion. Mobile Radio took part in Vienna for the second time after 2007. The videos below show excerpts of performances by Anna Friz, Ralf Wendt and us, who continued with an improvised quartet just before midnight that was shared via EBU satellite with a dozen other participating radio stations. Together with ORF producer Elisabeth Zimmermann this also meant that all five curators of the forthcoming International Radio Art Festival Radio Revolten could get together to plan the giant event ahead.

ÜRZIG/VIENNA November 2015

November 1, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on ÜRZIG/VIENNA November 2015

The Canadian artist Robert Adrian passed away on 7th September 2015, aged 80. ORF Kunstradio, with which he had a long lasting and influential relationship, organised a memorial broadcast with many prerecorded and live contributions by friends and colleagues of Robert Adrian under the auspices of alien.productions. We provided a live stream that could be used as a back-drop for other artists’ contributions.

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The live stream instruments in a ‘X’ layout

BREMEN July 2015

July 18, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on BREMEN July 2015

There are few better things than witnessing the birth of a new radio station. In this case Mobile Radio played midwife to the new “Radio im Fluss” which can be translated as “radio in flux” but is also a word play on the location of its host organisation, the Centre for Artists’ Publications, situated at the Weserburg Museum on an island in the river Weser in Bremen. Conceived as an outlet for the extensive collection of radio art at the research centre, “Radio im Fluss” also manifests as a weekly slot on Bremen’s community radio channel Radio Weser.TV.

We used an invitation to the opening of the city wide exhibition “Im Inneren der Stadt” to give our radio head Leslie an outing in Bremen, turning the evening party into a temporary pirate radio station.

HUDSON June 2015

June 6, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on HUDSON June 2015

Our stint in the US came to an end with a Tonic Train concert at the excellent Spotty Dog Books & Ale in Hudson, organised and broadcast live by WGXC. Following our Wave Farm stay we happily served as jury members for their 2016’s crop of residency applications.
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ACRA May – June 2015

June 6, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on ACRA May – June 2015

A long held wish came true when we could visit the Wave Farm in upstate New York. Galen and Tom had been longstanding cooperation partners as free103point9 in the Radia network but their rural transmission art venture Wave Farm kept being shrouded in mystery even though friends reported of wonderful radio activities. Writing this text almost a year after our ten day residency in Acra I still can’t believe the vision and pure determination that is manifest in the Wave Farm building and its beautiful surroundings, let alone the on air cosmos that is WGXC 90.7 FM which has is headquarters here.
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Galen Joseph-Hunter

Galen Joseph-Hunter and latest addition to the Wave Farm family – puppy Dash


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Tom Roe in his element, broadcasting live from the Wave Farm, one of three WGXC studios

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Apart from great views, wild dears, turkeys and humming birds the Wave Farm also offers a number of installations by former residents and toys to play with, such as a radio truck with a built in AM transmitter (see below) that could be used for fm/am feedback experiments. Some results of this session can be found here.
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After a trip around the WGXC infrastructure with their 3.3kW FM transmitter and antenna site we also got a tour of their studio complex in Hudson, where the odd freight train crossing gives nearby listeners instant proof that their community radio is live and direct.

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train crossing, WGXC Hudson studio and neighbouring hall (supposedly owned by Marina Abramovic)

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Wave Farm library and study room


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which one is the ‘on air’ light?

JERSEY CITY May 2015

May 27, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on JERSEY CITY May 2015

wfmu0 Across the Hudson river, only one stop away from the newly opened World Trade Center station in Manhattan, we visit Jersey City to play at the legendary radio station WFMU. We are excited to tour the station with Dave Mandl, whose World of Echo was one of the first syndicated shows that played across the pond on Resonance FM. After showing us around and introducing us to manager Ken Freedman, we did a session for his show in a studio that oozes rock ‘n’ roll. You can listen to it below or download it in glorious 24bit resolution.

Photo by Dave Mandl

Photo by Dave Mandl


World of Echo show host Dave Mandl and engineer Serge Z.

World of Echo show host Dave Mandl and engineer Serge Z.

The WFMU library

The WFMU library

TORONTO May 2015

May 24, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on TORONTO May 2015

On our return to Toronto to take part in NAISA’s Deep Wireless festival and Transmission X Symposium, our host Jim Bailey offered us to join him for a live session on his weekly radio show on local campus radio CIUT. Did we say ‘local’ radio station? With a transmitter power of 15,000 Watts the transmission can be heard across the border in the US.
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Knut could not resist feeding the 15kW transmitter back though a tiny transistor radio and a mic in a plastic box.
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Jim joined in on voice and objects for a trio performance before we steped back out into the night in the deserted government district.
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Darren Copeland (Photo: Stefan Rose)

Our collaborations with fellow experimental musicians continued at Deep Wireless, where our evening performance ended in an ad hoc quartet with Peter Flemming playing his electromagnetic installation and live surround sound diffusion by Darren Copeland gesturing with his data glove.

The following day we gave the keynote lecture at the Trans X Symposium entitled “What we’ve learned so far – 10 years of Mobile Radio”.
Our trip was made possible by the generous support from the Goethe Institut Toronto.

Peter Flemming and Tonic Train (Photo: Stefan Rose)

Peter Flemming and Tonic Train (Photo: Stefan Rose)

Our final involvement in the festival was a two hour radio hacking workshop that yielded some instant and noisy results for participants young and old.
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GUELPH May 2015

May 19, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on GUELPH May 2015

Our tour of Ontario radio stations continued with a day trip to campus radio station CFRU in Guelph, about an hour west of Toronto. There we met with programme manager Christopher Currie, who introduced us to some of the station’s radio producers. CFRU recently started to carry Radia shows, so we presented an overiview of the network’s activities.

Christopher Currie and CFRU history in stickers

Christopher Currie and CFRU history in stickers

Introducing the Radia network to CFRU

Introducing the Radia network

Rachel Elliott from the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation interviewed us for her Sound It Out show which you can listen to here. We then had time to visit the university’s world-class arboretum before returning to play a live improvised set, which ended just in time to catch the last bus back to Toronto.

Rachel Elliott and Sarah

Rachel Elliott and Sarah

Tonic Train live on CFRU

Tonic Train live on CFRU

KINGSTON May 2015

May 16, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on KINGSTON May 2015

CFRC - on air since 1922

CFRC – on air since 1922

Our trip to Ontario offered us the chance to visit Radia member CFRC in Kingston. The campus based radio station has been on air since 1922 and is one of the oldest community radio braodcasters in the world. Still in their original building, everything oozes the station’s remarkable history. Operations Officer Kristiana Clemens and Music Resources Manager Cameron Willis (both history graduates) made us feel very welcome and cleared several hours of airtime for us to do a Tonic Train live performance, a Neue Deutsche Welle themed DJ set and offered their 50,000+ strong music library to be abused by Johnny Head In Air, his favourite thing…

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Tonic Train live set

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Cameron Willis at the controls

Kristiana Clemens

Kristiana Clemens at the heart of CFRC

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Talking about Neue Deutsche Welle, what do the Canadians make of Grauzone’s Eisbär?

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Johnny Head In Air, never knowingly less than 4 faders up

To our surprise we found out that our old feedback friend Matt Rogalsky lives, works and teaches in Kingston and took the chance to join him for a trip to Wolfe Island to test out his new hydrophones. At the end of our weeks stay we joined him and further protagonists from the vibrant local music scene for a concert in his garden. Kingston is cool.

Sound fishing with Matt Rogalsky

Sound fishing with Matt Rogalsky

Kingston house concert

Kingston house concert

TORONTO May 2015

May 9, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on TORONTO May 2015

INTRODUCING LESLIE

Radio head Leslie - broadcasting your every word (photo: Stefan A. Rose)

Radio head Leslie – broadcasting your every word (photo: Stefan A. Rose)

For our first project in North America, we decided to realise a long-held desire to produce a binaural radio broadcast using a dummy head. As it turned out, it was incredibly easy to source a suitable mannequin head in Toronto as there is a specialist shop for showroom dummy parts. We wanted a realistic looking head model to maximise the effect of using it in public space. It so happened that our head, dubbed Leslie (after the rotating speaker) and selected for the quality of his ears, was an eerily convincing representation of a secret agent. We used him to stage a temporary radio broadcast from The Stop’s Farmers’ Market.
The market is housed in Artspace Wychwood Barns, where our hosts NAISA are located. NAISA invited us in cooperation with Goethe Institut Toronto as resident artists for the Deep Wireless festival and key note speakers for the TransX Transmission Art Symposium.

Naisa's Artistic Director Darren Copeland acting as a test dummy for dummy head Leslie

Naisa’s Artistic Director Darren Copeland acting as a test dummy for dummy head Leslie

Leslie wants a cracker (photo: Stefan A. Rose)

Leslie wants a cracker (photo: Stefan A. Rose)

Leslie was equipped to transmit from in-ear microphones in surround sound. He was taken on a tour of The Stop’s Farmers’ Market introducing him to the vendors and their wares. The idea was to perform a social sculpture dealing with the joint themes of ecological sustainability and surveillance-resistance. This was in part conceived as an inverse interpretation of How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare by Joseph Beuys. Leslie’s oppositions to the Dead Hare were as follows: the audience did not know they were an audience / the objects for interpretation (in this case foodstuffs) were produced by many people / Leslie’s perspective was made audible / anyone could participate by speaking – transforming audience into performers / the symbolic props (home-made jam, chocolates and wine from Germany, freshly picked high mountain green tea from Taiwan) were shared with the public as offerings.
There was also a potential secondary layer of live audience, both intentional and unintentional: listeners from elsewhere in the world could track the tour from stall to stall by picking up the advertised Deep Wireless radio stream, whereas local people could pick up the FM broadcast by accident, follow Leslie around the market with their own radios, or tune in when they returned home to the surrounding area. The broadcast frequency was not advertised, it was told to people individually. Listening in on headphones unlocked the binaural quality of Leslie’s transmissions enabling a simulation of the spatialisation of sound as it occurred at his precise location.

Cheers, bigears!

Cheers, bigears!

The produce we brought from Germany was shared in communion with the public, by way of exchange and in appreciation for the art of the artisan food producer and their importance as pioneers of the current conception of food sustainability. Above, browsers sample a 2004 Auslese*** from Weingut Karl Erbes. Another highlight was our own red gooseberry and raspberry jam which we teamed up with a loaf of local bread. Our gifts were much appreciated, meaning that during the two hour broadcast-performance Leslie only managed one round of the market.

Leslie's first impression of Canadian country music, and a tribute to Leslie by the Chickens Before Jets Stringband

Leslie’s first impression of Canadian country music, and a tribute to Leslie by the Chickens Before Jets Stringband

Radio head Leslie - making social media waves (photo: Stefan A. Rose)

Radio head Leslie – making social media waves (photo: Stefan A. Rose)

The broadcast-performance had several interesting effects and outcomes. One was the ability of Leslie to completely break down interpersonal barriers. Almost anyone we passed was happy to talk to us and would continue even after we had explained that we were broadcasting. (A natural speaking manner is unachievable if you offer a microphone to people.) As soon as Leslie was out of your hands, you became invisible to passers-by once more.
Secondly, the surveillance aspect of the project was not immediately obvious to many participants. Where it did arise in the form of a query about our intentions, we countered with the suggestion that Leslie makes it visible that we are being listened to, unlike the other devices we are surrounded with. Also, we explained that no-one knows who is listening to Leslie on the airwaves. These were considered to be very novel ideas. We hoped to trigger further awareness of the current level of state surveillance and data capture.
Thirdly, there was a spooky element to the proceedings. There were many expressions of shock, and people ran around excitedly pointing out the disembodied head to their friends. One man saw the head and was instantly transfixed; mesmerised to the degree he was unable to deal with his small daughter falling over backwards at the same moment on the hard floor. Casting half a glance in her direction, he returned his eyes to the head and its bearer in disbelief, and then squinted as if to make an accusation: I don’t know how you did it, but that severed head made my child fall over and hit her head!

Toronto-based artist Claude Wittmann holds Leslie in awe

Toronto-based artist Claude Wittmann holds Leslie in awe

Our thanks to Claude Wittmann for the use of his radio transmitter, which in conjunction with small wireless microphones embedded in Leslie’s ears enabled us to broadcast live in the local area on FM.

LONDON March 2015

March 12, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on LONDON March 2015

Our tour with Haco came to an end in London with a concert at Cafe Oto (click on the left arrow to access more photos by Fabio Lugaro) and a Clear Spot on Resonance FM which is archived below. All recordings from the tour will soon be looked at for a potential future release.

Clear Spot – 12th March 2015 (Haco) by Resonance Fm on Mixcloud

In between these performances we gave talks at the Radio Now symposium hosted by Ed Baxter at the London College of Communication, meeting new and old friends from the world of radio art.
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ROTTERDAM March 2015

March 7, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on ROTTERDAM March 2015

The Mobile Radio Band arrived in Rotterdam just in time to perform at the excellent Vrooom concert series organised by our pal Lukas Simonis.

Soundcheck at 'Het Klooster', a former monastery chapel

Soundcheck at ‘Het Klooster’, a former monastery chapel

NIJMEGEN March 2015

March 6, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on NIJMEGEN March 2015

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(photo: Danielle Lemaire)

At Extrapool in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, we opened the concert with our Tonic Train duo and Haco closed it with songs from her new Album ‘Secret Garden‘ ending with an extended version of her classic track ‘Shower Alone‘. You can read a review of the evening here (in Dutch).
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One of the berths we spent the night in at the Extrapool artist flat was covered with QSL cards of fake CB radio operators which in reality depict Holland's rich pirate radio history

One of the berths we spent the night in at the Extrapool artist flat was covered with QSL cards of fake CB radio operators which in reality depict Holland’s rich pirate radio history

Lovely concert poster created in Extrapool's famous print workshop

Lovely concert poster created in Extrapool’s famous print workshop

COLOGNE March 2015

March 5, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on COLOGNE March 2015

Our tour with Haco had a brief stop in Cologne where we performed at the Opekta Ateliers, an artist run studio space and residency in the up and coming district Nippes.

Playing underneath flying sculptures (photo: Georg Dietzler)

Playing underneath flying sculptures (photo: Georg Dietzler)

MUNICH March 2015

March 2, 2015 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on MUNICH March 2015

Tonic Train is the name of our longstanding music duo, and in the beginning of March we started a tour with our friend and collaborator Haco in Munich’s signalraum.

Sarah, Haco & Knut

Sarah, Haco & Knut (photo: Horst Konietzny)

To fill an evening’s programme we decided to play three sets: a Tonic Train duo, a Haco solo and as our trio called Mobile Radio Band. The day after the performance we spent recording in the former brewery cellar as a trio with a view to a possible CD release.

Mobile Radio Band in concert

Mobile Radio Band in concert

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During the recording session

During the recording session (photo: Haco)

LONDON December 2014

December 10, 2014 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on LONDON December 2014

Our week in London was filled with activities based around Alfred Graham’s 1894 landmark feedback patent “A New or Improved Method and Means of Producing Sound” and the launch of the 2CD + DVD release of epochal recordings from the 2004 LMC/CMN tour “Feedback: Order from Noise” on Mikroton.

Mikroton label boss Kurt Liedwart presenting a Clear Spot on Resonance104.4fm

Mikroton label boss Kurt Liedwart presenting a Clear Spot on Resonance104.4fm

To celebrate the 120th anniversary of feedback music Resonance104.4fm and ORF Kunstradio linked up for a live performance by Mobile Radio who were joined in the studio by Xentos ‘Fray’ Bentos, Hans W. Koch and Daniel Wilson. The show which was also broadcast by Soundart Radio in Totnes and Kanal 103 in Skopje is archived below:

Preparation for the 120th anniversary transmission (photo by Sarah Nicol)

Preparation for the 120th anniversary transmission (photo by Sarah Nicol)

On the 8th December 2014, exactly 120 years after Alfred Graham’s patent was granted, a celebratory concert took place at Cafe Oto, featuring Lu Edmonds, Xentos ‘Fray’ Bentos, Moshi Honen, Hans W. Koch, Daniel Wilson, Dominic Stephens plus us two. Simon Lucas filmed the show and made this video of our rendition of the BLOCK piece:


And here is a recording of the duo by Lu and Knut:


Our trip was framed by two lectures for sound art students at the University of the Arts London.
University of the Arts London

PARIS August 2014

August 2, 2014 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on PARIS August 2014

The ∏-node collective had called for ideas for a whole day of broadcasting on their own mini-fm frequencies (108.0 MHz) as well as Radio Campus in Paris (93.9 MHz and DAB+). Knut organised a live performance duo with Tetsuo Kogawa in Tokyo, the outcome of which is archived above. Both used their individual no-input transmitter techniques, all sounds come from feedback and interferences between radio transmitters and receivers.

Tetsuo Kogawa performing live in Tokyo while… (photo: Tetsuo Kogawa)

…Knut was adding his sounds in Paris (photo: Anton Mobin)

Many other events found their way on air: live music mixes, an antenna building workshop, DJ-sets, round table discussions, trumpet playing and baby crying. Plus live inputs from a roving reporter in the nearby park and callers to a magic phone number that would replace any current input to the transmitters.

The ∏-node crew and guests

DInahBird, Pali Mersault and Knut discussing the joy of outside broadcasts (photo: Anton Mobin)

ÜRZIG June 2014

June 16, 2014 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on ÜRZIG June 2014


Mobile Radio teamed up with Xentos ‘Fray’ Bentos for an improvised radio play broadcast from a white bench high up in our local red slate vineyard, the Ürziger Würzgarten. Being off-grid meant that everything was battery operated and wireless, using the 3G network to beam our stream to our host radio station: Soundart Radio in Totnes, UK. The performance itself was old-school, everything had to be done live in front of a single stereo microphone. Foley instruments included various types of slate, plastic bottles, sticks, circuit bent instruments, iPhone sample app, crows, military aircraft, thumb piano, fm tx and rx feedback, percussion instruments, live air band radio, paper etc.

setting up at the white bench (photo by Xentos)

in performance high above the river Mosel...

...following an unknown script... (photo by Xentos)

...until dusk. (photo by Xentos)

BREMEN June 2014

June 7, 2014 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on BREMEN June 2014

Mobile Radio was invited to Radio As Art in Bremen to broadcast the conference and give a talk. We provided a conference radio live stream that ran for 48 hours, broadcasting all the talks as well as extra interviews, chats, commentary and two night-long radio art specials. We were very lucky that Soundart Radio, Wave Farm Radio/WGXC 90.7-FM, Radio Papesse and Phaune Radio decided to relay our stream to their listeners both on air and online.

Sarah was a participant in the conference panel discussion and also contributed a talk on ‘Community Radio as Post-Capitalist Art’ which is archived above.

Andreas Hagelüken, Elisabeth Zimmermann, Sarah Washington, Regine Beyer, Nathalie Singer, Anna Ramos

During the breaks contributors and visitors would find their way to the Mobile Radio table at the back of the conference room to enhance the experience for listeners around the world. It would be nice if all interesting conferences had a conference radio! The rest of the talks were also recorded and should be published soon on the conference website.

Anna Friz and Hank Bull chat with us at the Mobile Radio table. Photo by Elisabeth Zimmermann

sonic intervention by Cologne university students

Radio Picnic by Ralf Homann - a 1/4" tape spool unravels

View from the Mobile Radio table

LONDON May 2014

May 19, 2014 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on LONDON May 2014

Ed Baxter invited us to our very first appearance as part of the Resonance Radio Orchestra in his work Sketch for Ascent and Descent

This was a live performance at the Science Museum in London on the opening day of the exhibition ‘The Exponential Horn: In Search of Perfect Sound’, on 19th May 2014. The audience experienced the performance through the Exponential Horn, a full-size reconstruction of the giant 8 meter long ‘Denman horn’ from the 1930s, which is the centrepiece of an art installation by Aleksander Kolkowski. (Open until 27 July 2014)

The line-up for the Resonance Radio Orchestra on this occasion was:
Ed Baxter (text, score, electric bass), Dudley Sutton (voice), Adam Bushell (vibraphone), Peter Lanceley (electric guitar, voice), Chris Weaver, Sarah Washington & Knut Aufermann (electronics)








Photos: Jennie Hills, Science Museum

GIESSEN May 2014

May 4, 2014 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on GIESSEN May 2014

Gabi Schaffner and Pit Schultz’ Datscharadio combines two future proof activities: fm radio and gardening. We called on them in their converted caravan that was parked in the grounds of the State Garden Show in Gießen, Germany. Sarah revisited 40 year old bird song recordings she had inherited from her father and Knut made everybody whistle and hum, including Gabi, Pit and guest artist Sylvie Arnaud. In return we got sunshine, local cider and tulips.










ÜRZIG/GENEVA/BERLIN March 2014

March 16, 2014 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on ÜRZIG/GENEVA/BERLIN March 2014

Fellow radio artist Marold Langer-Philippsen invited Roberto Paci Dalò in Rimini and us in Ürzig to provide live input via webstream to his performance “jamming radio” at the EBU Ars Acustica meeting in Geneva. Our audio streams were source material for his mix that was taking cues from 100 years of radio history. It took some time to get it all working technically so we were happy to be offered another chance a few days later to collaborate using the same setup for Marold’s show Hörmaschine on Berlin’s Reboot FM.






ROTTERDAM January 2014

January 17, 2014 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on ROTTERDAM January 2014

Armeno Alberts had been holding up the flag for radio art on Dutch national radio for many years. On Art’s Birthday in 2014 we mourned the loss of his show Cafe Sonore and at the same time celebrated his release from the fangs of public radio with an interview on stage at WORM in Rotterdam.

The next day Lukas Simonis invited fellow Art’s Birthday guests Joyce Hinterding and David Haines as well as Henk Bakker and Knut to his studio for a recording session. An excerpt from it found its way into the ether as Radia show 467:








All photos: David Haines

KINHEIM-KINDEL November 2013

November 5, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on KINHEIM-KINDEL November 2013

Every autumn thousands of wine cellars in the Mosel valley, Germany’s premier wine growing region, turn into magnificent sound installations. Freshly pressed grape juice starts fermenting in barrels and the escaping gas bubbles through glass u-pipes, each barrel at its own speed. Mobile Radio set up seven microphones in the wine cellar of bio-dynamic winemakers Rudolf & Rita Trossen to capture and broadcast live these fermentation sounds, documenting the work of yeast turning juice into wine over a period of 17 hours. The following edit is a recording of the activity in the cellar during the midnight hour on the 5th November 2013.








 
Many radio stations from the Radia Network broadcast the sounds live through the night (Radio Panik, Radio Zero, free109point9/WGXC, Kanal 103, Radio Campus, Radio Corax, Reboot.fm, Soundart Radio) or as an edit later on (Radio x, Orange 94.0, Resonance104.4fm, Radio One 91FM, Närradio). Even state public radio and television in Germany (SWR1, SWR4 and SWR TV) reported on what they dubbed the ‘bubble symphony’.
A special sacrifice was made by the fruit flies who added their sparks to the soundscape by visting the fly zapper.








MULHOUSE October 2013

October 26, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on MULHOUSE October 2013

We were invited to the week-long Franco-German Klapperstein meeting of university radio stations in Mulhouse to lead a radio hacking workshop.













Our workshop was held in a former textile factory that is slowly being converted into a cultural centre. Old FM radios were opened up and turned into beautiful noise machines by making new connections on their circuit boards. On the second day the participants, who came from campus or free radio stations in France and Germany, could also learn from Dinah Bird how to make a contact microphone.








Many aspects of the Klapperstein meeting were broadcast on a temporary FM frequency of Radio Campus in Mulhouse. Their approach was to transmit from various different make-shift locations in Switzerland (gallery), Germany (pub) and France (factory, club, restaurant, gallery space) which worked well and confirmed the possibility to run a radio station from many decentralized studios.

The final act of the meeting was a 24h Placard headphone festival which we opened with a Tonic Train set and later on included a performance by some of our workshop participants on their new musical instruments.

STOCKHOLM September 2013

September 22, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on STOCKHOLM September 2013


After our productive workshop at Konsthall C in May we returned with the idea to create a 24 hour radio art festival on two FM frequencies. Called Dubbelradio, it was probably the first such festival in the world.
The four-channel audio works that were performed and broadcast are hard to document, so we have made a video to show the scope of the project. Click here to watch it in HD. Listening will be greatly enhanced on headphones or decent speakers.

Dubbelradio logo by Hanna Stenman

KINHEIM-KINDEL July 2013

July 19, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on KINHEIM-KINDEL July 2013

Sarah and Knut alias Tonic Train provided a sonic intermezzo for the artwork of Kurt Müllers at the exhibition opening at the annual wine garden fest of the wine estate Rudolf & Rita Trossen.










The steles of Kurt Müllers. Photos: Tanja Brust

HALLE July 2013

July 12, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on HALLE July 2013

As guest curator and contributor to the Addicted2Random festival of Radio Corax, Knut assembled an international group to produce Imaginary Radio Band No. 1 for the opening of the proceedings at the Händelhaus. The musicians performing live on stage were:

Andre Damião (BR), computer, voice
Børre Mølstad (NO), tuba, voice
Xentos ‘Fray’ Bentos (UK), guitar, voice
Knut Aufermann (DE), electronics, voice
Sarah Washington (UK), electronics, voice
With additional voices by Helen Hahmann and Ralf Wendt

The idea was to produce an acoustic journey through an uncharted band on the radio dial, jumping from station to station. We were lucky enough to work with the museum custodian Christiane Barth, who allowed us to perform on the organ built by Johann Gottlieb Mauer in 1770. The recorded version below is a special reworking of the live recordings for the Radia network by Xentos.



















Photos: Marcus Andreas Mohr

Other events of this wildly diverse and beautiful festival included a duo of Tetsuo Kogawa (on AM transmitters via live-stream from Tokyo) and Knut, a rare DJ set by the elusive Johnny Head-in-Air and the introduction of two people who should have already met decades ago…







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

COLOGNE April 2013

April 25, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on COLOGNE April 2013

We were invited to the annual meeting of the EBU Ars Acustica expert group hosted at the WDR to present our work Mobile Radio BSP from the 30th São Paulo Bienal and to give a talk on the Radia Network which included a sneak preview of the Radia Relay web channel.




Photos: Marek Zwyrzykowski

VIENNA February 2013

February 24, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on VIENNA February 2013

Our trip to Vienna began with a Tonic Train concert (watch) as part of the Stupid Third Wednesday concert series at the Rhiz.


Photo: klingt.org

The reason for our travel was an invitation by Marold Langer-Philippsen to join him for part 8 of his Paradise Lost series for Kunstradio. Here we got our first chance to use the fantastic ORF radio studio for a live broadcast. We got so completely lost in our radiophonic world that we missed the end of the show…








BREMEN January 2013

January 17, 2013 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on BREMEN January 2013

For the celebration of the 1000050th birthday of art we were invited to do a joint broadcast with Willem de Ridder at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art. Initiated by Anne Thurmann-Jajes of the Research Centre for Artists’ Publications and hosted by Regine Beyer this was our first meeting with the fluxus godfather of radio art.











Thanks to Elisabeth Zimmermann from ORF Kunstradio in Austria our live stream was carried on the EBU satellite HAYDN for 20 minutes and picked up by radio stations around the world. It was a ball working with Willem, who has a knack for summoning up innumerable possibilities out of thin air. We gave a talk about Mobile Radio and performances in various combinations throughout the evening. Especially noteworthy was the duo of Willem’s compelling meandering voice and the echoing response of Sarah’s electronic beeps. They were lost in space for a little while there.

SÃO PAULO August – December 2012 part 5 (final)

December 9, 2012 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on SÃO PAULO August – December 2012 part 5 (final)

To start at the beginning of our Mobile Radio BSP documentation click here.

Following an invitation from Mobile Radio BSP programme maker Tiago de Mello we played our second concert in São Paulo, this time on the grounds of the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, MuBE.

Tonic Train

Our last three weeks of programming flew by and many people grasped a final chance to get behind the microphone. Especially those who worked for the Bienal who embraced the possibility to drop by and make radio:
– educator Catharine Rodrigues and her homemade instruments (listen)
– educator Azeite and his band TESTMOLDE (listen)
– the Bienal communication team Felipe Taboada, Felipe Kaizer and Julia Frate
– the Bienal singers
Furthermore we had visits from:
– teachers and students from the Experimental Design class at the Arts University of Linz
– musician and lecturer Eduardo Nespoli
– our housemate the photographer André Cepeda who took to radio like a duck to water (listen)
– Brazilian free radio broadcasters from Radio Livre Capivara, Radio Muda, Radio Xiado and Radio Varzea
– Radio Cultura FM producer and our cultural city guide Julio de Paula, who offered us the gift of a parting-of-the-ways radio show











Our last guest for the radio residencies was Marold Langer-Philippsen from Germany. His interest in durational radio led to him perform an overnight broadcast from the Bienal pavilion under the watchful and quizzical eye of security, he carried out in total 33 hours (listen) of transmission during his week-long visit.
Together with Marold, Leandro Nerefuh and André Damião we joined the event Chain Reaction that was organized by Reni Hofmüller and Max Höfler for Radio Helsinki in Graz, Austria. Their stream which collected sounds from many other radio locations around the world became our source of inspiration for a collective improvisation which we streamed back to them.


Marold Langer-Philippsen




André Damião


Together with all the producers of regular shows we had to face the fact that the 14 weeks of making radio was coming to a close, therefore the last week was a long series of often emotional goodbyes. Without their dedication and input Mobile Radio BSP would not have been so full of life:
– Historias sonoras: one last story told by our volunteer-turned-friend Pedro Garbellini
– Supertônica – Risco no Disco: Julio de Paula plays Gilberto Gil and Schoenberg to contemporary Brazilian musicians (listen) during our regular collaboration with national broadcaster Radio Cultura
– A Hora do Educativo: looking forward to the end of the relentless stream of school classes, about a hundred groups every day who each needed an interactive tour from a dedicated and enthusiasctic guide around the giant exhibition
– TELA DE LETRAS: characters from the surrounding Ibirapuera park invited for interview by Rita Alves
– Oidaradio Sessions curated by Nick Graham-Smith: with Guilherme Granado (listen), The Eternals (listen) and One Man Bands
– Pipa Musical: XTO and Rogerio Krepski’s radio art mayhem celebrated with their final guests (listen)
– Paisagens & Poéticas: São Paulo field recordings mixed with poetry by Renata Roman (listen)


Pedro Garbellini

Julio de Paula


Guilherme Granado
The Eternals

Nick Graham-Smith


Renata Roman

Photos 6-8: Leo Eloy/Fundação Bienal de São Paulo © Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

The final job we wanted to do was to pass on our know-how about how to run a radio station, so we gave a workshop to some interested individuals. We also took a final photo of the posters and flyers we had collected over the course of the project from some of the 40+ radio stations we collaborated with, gave out the last postcards and stickers, and packed up our radiophonic musical boxes. Before checking the tuning of the radio outside our studio for the last time, we cast a final glance over the original project credits printed on the studio wall, to judge how we had measured up to our remit. It was satisfying to realise how far we had stretched ourselves, and that we had achieved more collaborations than expected.









On the last day of the exhibition we joined Alexandre Marino Fernandez, Bruno Hissatugu and Rafael De Marchi Gherini Molla from the Alreves music label for a live performance to celebrate the final hours of Mobile Radio BSP. Our curator Tobi Maier, radio partner Leandro Nerefuh and some of our new friends came along. Unfortunately the performance was cut short by a complete black out that was triggered by the official switch-on of the lights on the giant São Paulo christmas tree nearby. All visitors to the Bienal were evacuated from the building. We remained, to see if we could get back on air as the project still had a short while left to run.








Sarah Washington, Knut Aufermann, Tobi Maier, Leandro Nerefuh

When the lights eventually came back on we were the last people left in the building, but we could finish our 98 days of solid broadcasting with a planned live relay of our radio piece City Of Drizzle from Kunstradio on Austria’s state broadcaster Ö1. The piece was commissioned by ORF Kunstradio and produced by us during the 30th Bienal of São Paulo using recordings from Mobile Radio BSP mixed together with the incredible voice of Carolina Melo, assistant curator for education of the Bienal.

Our last few days in the country were spent on an island with empty lagoons, tropical fish and no cars. It was a much-welcomed reward for completeing Mobile Radio BSP.





CAMPINAS November 2012

November 29, 2012 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on CAMPINAS November 2012


Mobile Radio BSP contributor Tiago de Mello invited us to play a concert as part of the NMElindo concert series in Campinas, about an hour and a half north-west of São Paulo. We were last in the line-up and enjoyed the gusts of wind that were blowing through the outdoor amphitheater. It was a magical environment in which to play – in the open park of the university campus surrounded by a circle of mature trees. We also used the chance to visit one of our contributing radio partners Radio Muda on the campus, in their surprising studio housed in the bottom of a concrete tower.


Radio Muda


Photo 3 and video by Carol Neumann, Marina Tavares and Lukas Corazzini, support by CAIA, Visarte, AAAIA.

RIO DE JANEIRO November 2012

November 22, 2012 by Mobile Radio | Comments Off on RIO DE JANEIRO November 2012

After 11 weeks of continuous broadcasting at the 30th Bienal de São Paulo we managed to sneak off to Rio de Janeiro for a couple of days. At the wonderful artist-run Capacete hotel we recorded an interview with Vivian Caccuri & Arto Lindsay to take back to the radio, as well as a toucan squawking outside our window. (Yes, a bleedin’ toucan!)





Sarah performs analogue photoshop during our sightseeing tour…

And we find the most amazing trees coming into bloom…








The cannonball tree!