CWCH collective

A live collaborative radio art performance series, improvised around changing themes by a stellar line-up of sound and radio artists.

Series one has 15 editions featuring 16 players, a photographer and 2 special guests.

Produced by Mobile Radio with streaming support from π-node, CWCH collective shows were broadcast live on Thursdays from 21:00 – 22:00 CEST on Resonance Extra in Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, London and Norwich on DAB, π-node in Mulhouse and Paris on DAB, WGXC and Wavefarm in the Upper Hudson Valley on FM and AM, Soundart Radio in Dartington on FM, and Radio Tsonami in Valparaiso online. There were subsequent rebroadcasts by Radio Ara in Luxembourg, JET FM in Nantes, Radio Panik in Brussels and Radio Orange in Vienna on FM.

Worker-artists convene a hive broadcast of indiscriminately gathered sound-pollen, transmitting codified messages to kindred folk. Each week a potent gang of sound artists are at play, exploring whatever is on their minds. Style guide: Anything goes

Most recent transmission (scroll down for full archive):

Edition 15 – Close-Flung (16th July 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Lloyd Dunn Prague, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne, Rodrigo Ríos Zunino Valparaíso.
Live broadcast from Saarländisches Künstlerhaus in Saarbrücken.

The CWCH collective is a modern-day revival of an anarchic sound art event which Sarah put together above the Dragon Bar near Old Street in London around the year 2000. This featured an incredible line-up of pioneering sound artists who were mostly studying Sonic Arts at the University of Middlesex. Nowadays her compatriots in sound are spread far and wide, so she decided to bring a new group of these together online in an effort to re-establish the spirit of the original CWCH – a Welsh word meaning boat or hive (pronounced like the German kuch). Twenty years ago when she so named it, Sarah thought the word she was using was cwtch – meaning a heartfelt hug. That turned out to be an apposite misunderstanding, as this meaning inspired the desire to work virtually in 2020 due to a period of externally enforced personal distancing. Yet this time around the word ‘hive’ best describes the playing actions and mentality of the participants.

The way CWCH works in today’s incarnation is that multiple livestreams are received from around the world at Mobile Radio’s home studio in Ürzig (Germany) via π-node’s server in France. Sarah combines these with her own and Knut’s on-site sounds to tie everything together into a realtime composition, while simultaneously balancing the levels of all the incoming sources to create a coherent final broadcast mix. There is a lengthy sound check to help with this process and minimise the amount of mixing needed during the show. The players streaming in can only hear themselves back in the final mix after an internet-induced delay of between 10 and 30 seconds, necessitating that they take a leap of faith in each moment and ‘play into the future’.

The collective quickly settled into a group of 11 sound artists (plus 1 photographer who became accidentally attached during the first broadcast), based in 9 separate locations across 5 countries. Due to the desire to give other players an opportunity when there were gaps, by the time series one came to a close there had been 16 players streaming from 14 locations across 9 countries, plus two special guest contributors who either called in live or sent material to be freely incorporated. The highest number playing together in a single show was 13, for the final performance of the series which took place at the Saarländische Künstlerhaus in Saarbrücken with four of the players in situ at the venue and the rest streaming in as usual.

Sarah began putting the group together spontaneously with artists she happened to be in contact with at the time. Very soon there were more than enough sound sources to tackle and everyone wanted to continue playing (therefore the membership did not regularly rotate between a wider group as expected until the final few weeks of series one). This rapid consolidation of weekly contributors greatly helped in the realisation of Sarah’s primary aim – to establish a specific system which inherently allows a distinct aesthetic to develop. Thus CWCH collective was reborn in 2020 with a new hive mind. Further series and/or special editions are anticipated.

Edition 1 – The Same Boat (9th April 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 2 – Oil & Vinegar (16th April 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 3 – Wormhole Variations (23rd April 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 4 – Transcendental Trepidation (30th April 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 5 – Mission Compossible (7th May 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 6 – Weltschmerz Heimat (14th May 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Special live guest Dr. Fortunatus Keller, Hamburg.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 7 – 300 Trillion Times Less Dense (21st May 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 8 – We Got Der Funk (28th May 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Halle (Saale), DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 9 – Rhapsody in Why? (4th June 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 10 – Stand Down Racist (11th June 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 11 – Fast Radio Bursts (18th June 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 12 – Last Wave Standing (25th June 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, Katharina Bihler & Stefan Scheib Saarbrücken, DinahBird & Jean-Philippe Renoult Paris, dieb13 Vienna, Lloyd Dunn Prague, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Lucinda Guy Buckfastleigh.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 13 – Indivisible i (2nd July 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, Frauke Berg Düsseldorf, DinahBird & Jean-Philippe Renoult Paris, dieb13 Vienna, Lloyd Dunn Prague, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Lucinda Guy Buckfastleigh, Hannes Hölzl Andrian, Ralf Schreiber Cologne.
Special live guest Dr. Fortunatus Keller, Hamburg.
This edition was also broadcast live on Radio Corax.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

Edition 14 – More Bows Less Arrows (9th July 2020)

Knut Aufermann & Sarah Washington Ürzig, Xentos Fray Bentos Broughton, DinahBird Paris, dieb13 & Billy Roisz Vienna, Lloyd Dunn Prague, Anna Friz Santa Cruz, Ralf Schreiber Cologne, Rodrigo Ríos Zunino Valparaíso.
Special guest Nástio Mosquito.
Photo developed during the show by Pierre Metzinger

 

CWCH collective photo slide show