related posts:
From Sound to Waves to Territories

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professional background
practising media artist and producer / media and architectural interventions in the city / independent media networking / sound installations / radio art events /curating of festivals / Master in Media Arts & Design, Bauhaus University Weimar, chair for Experimental Radio (mentors: T. Kogawa, R. Homann)

Radio and the “schizophonic” Poetic of the urban Space

My creative PhD project “From Sound to Waves to Territories” focusses on the communicative and aesthetic challenges of the electro-acoustic space of radio connecting with the urban space. Here I intend to focus on the two particular locations involved in the radiophonic: the imaginary and the reality of the ‘city’ (as backdrop of the everyday).

My point of departure is the notion of the series as a genuine radio format invented by early US radio amateurs movement. I am interested in the series’ two main constituents, which in my view are the time-based notions of ‘repetition’ and ‘disruption’ and how they help to construct collectively a sense of territory and how this compares to similar cultural phenomena like play and ritual. Another way to describe this would be the “rhythmisation of the everyday”. It also connects to the Georges Sorel’s concept of the “social myth”.

Speaking from the experience of my own practice as a radio maker and media artist I have started to reflect differently about this territory I was actually transmitting into. While approaching the city from a Arts perspective, I feel unsatisfied with the common media business practice of analysing cities communication potential through market share and targeted audience groups. This dissatisfaction fostered my interest in communication as part of urban planning and media respective radio as a concrete tool for architectural and urban design – based on my reflection as a media practitioner about this space and its modi operandi.

Former works relating to media and the city: the neture series

My creative Ph.D strategy therefore consists out of two parts:

1.  To form an own theoretical “transdisciplinary” framework called “urban media scenography” in order to approach the nexus of the contemporary city based on selected source from the area of philosophy, urban planning and media studies
2. to produce a body of creative work which addresses the “city-ness” (Saskia Sassen).

Based on my recent research these two strategic parts (mentioned above) led me to identify two main focusses of my creative research:

1. the role of the stranger in the network of radio and city
2. the idea of sonic imaginative leaks or sonic leaks of imagination (not yet decided which wording I like betta)

The role of the stranger in the network of radio and city

• A concrete urban condition, “on the ground” so to speak.
• In contrary to the digital sphere where user activity can be precisely measured the conventional broadcast business still relies on to “statistically” assume its targeted audience based on the nature how the data surveys are being conducted and one can not technically measure the tuning in. A fact, which would translate to me, as they don’t really know, they assume. (example?)
• More generally looking into the notion of the strange or the alien as a communicative challenge, this connects with the concept of a “responsive phenomenology” (Bernhard Waldenfels) and the idea of the creative answer, which means the “what” of an answer is and will be always made up but not the “whereupon” we are answering and this is the true challenge.

The idea of imaginative leaks or leaks of imagination

Here I am aiming from a sound perspective at what the following:

• In his book “Poetics of Space” the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard unpacks the subconscious qualities of poetic imaginary which seem to leak in from a deeper level of human experience which is usually more hidden and less familiar to our everyday being in communication. The American conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth understands art as something that points or refers to the “unsayable”.
• I want to connect this with the notion of the “schizo-phonic”. A term coined by the Canadian scholar R. Murray Schafer.

While I do not agree with all of Schafer’s arguments particular in relation to how he comes to terms with an actual moral judgement of a sensual experience from an ecological point of view. Nevertheless his term schizophonic is interesting to me, because I do consider that a split is taking place in the amplification process of mediation in general but to me this is taking place on a social, political and / or cultural level. Although I find the way Schafer is referencing schizophrenia quite cliche like I still appreciate its notion of the potential imaginative leak. However in terms of schizophrenia I prefer to align my work rather along the lines of the work of R. D. Laing or Gregory Bateson’s and their observation of the group dynamics of schizophrenia. In addition I find  Humberto Maturana Romesín’s remark important where he stresses that the difference between virtual and non-virtual realities can only be a cultural one but not one in terms of cognitive perception. This again could be related to R. D. Laing idea of the “reframing”.

Why radio?
- The oldest of the new media
- it’s sound driven and the way sound stimulates one’s imagination in particular because of a lacking visualisation
- it has this clear territorial bond,
- it has proven a strong media hybridity with e.g. online media
- the live moment
- truly global and consumes very little energy in comparison to other electronic media.

Recap:
As soon as one has space, time and energy one has rhythm. The radio format of the series as a mean “rhythmisation of the everyday” and collectively created imaginary territories and therefore similar to other cultural phenomena like play and ritual.

At the same time radio means a spatially defined and bonded territory in comparison to e.g. the Internet (although there can be hybrid media mixes), which in my case means the contemporary city with its urban conditions and challenges and the individual “cityness” of each location.

Approaching the existing genre of the “radio play” as an output for my creative work I would like extend its notion:
Radio as a play with listening and “schizo-phonic” poetic – radio as play with strangers in the city.