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
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)
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.
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)
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)
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
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
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.
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.
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
