Read about what happened on Datscha Radio’s Blog: Resumé.
On the 29th of September, “The Gardens of Gyumri” invited the public and the listeners to join our show into the garden of the Gyumri Branch of the State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia.
Getamej’s Hanging Gardens:
Bratislava: Marold’s streaming studio, work platform for his 3-hour live story-telling. Image: MLP
Annette Gloser and many garden radio guests.
Image: Annette Gloser
There is no story account yet, of October 4th, when the garden of Getamej become paradise for a bunch of hungry cats: an Armenian barbeque accompanied our coming-together for listening. Here: Ara, one of the first chefs to arrive for a quick chat.
In a few seconds they passed. In agitation and crisis they passed // In sorrow and grieving they passed. They left and the years passed// adding happiness to pain.
Arshalouys Markarian: Years
Excerpt from „The Other Voice. Armenian Women’s Poetry through the Ages”. Translated by Diana Der-Hovanessian. AIva Press 2005
In the Taxi on the Road to Gyumri I ate the one and only apple I had brought with me from my Berlin garden. The taste was fresh, sour and sweet, and it mingled at the back of my palate with the aroma of exhaust fumes and dusty blankets. As a visiting artist from Germany, a stranger to the local communities, I feel immensely touched yet distant from the history of Armenia and the devastating earthquake in 1988. Now I live in Mush 2, one of the largest districts following the destruction of this city. My view goes out to new houses, old mountains and a small garden plot, fenced with a stone wall and used car tyres. Always, always, there will be something growing.
Datscha Radio is a nomadic garden radio project maintained and organized by Berlin artist and traveler Gabi Schaffner. Datscha Radio’s idea of gardening comprises the notion of gardens as a part of our cultural heritages. In the case of the Armenian project, this notion is extended to employ the arts and gardening as valuable strategies to grow resilience by taking care of one’s surroundings – be it plants, water, soil, housing or family.
Datscha Radio invites you to contribute to “The Gardens of Gyumri”, celebrating the joy of connecting to each other: on site, on air and online.
Together with our guests and participants, we will broadcast live on Sunday, 29th of September at a time yet to be fixed. We will also revive the tradition of micro-broadcasting. The program will present talks and readings, concerts, sound art, and it will be organized in cooperation with the Art Basis platform and the Gyumri Branch of State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia.
Since this radio station is ‘home-made’, an experiment and absolutely non-commercial, please understand that we will not accept mainstream music or mixes. Instead:
We are curious about
Local knowledge about fauna & flora, ecology and the art of cooking
Poetry/conversations relating to neighbourhood, friendship and family, grieving & recovery
Sound art, field recordings and playful approaches to radio
Traditional music and songs
When interested to perform live, please send 100 words about your set.
When interested to do live cooking or share recipes, please send a note about what kind of dish you have in mind
Your very person: Come and create radio!
Deadline: September, 25, 2024
Languages: EN, ARM, RU
The English language is NOT mandatory!
You may send spoken word contributions or information about your work also in your native language
Don’t feel shy, there will be translators to help me understand.
Your contributions
Please send your sound contribution as mp3 ONLY (preferably 320 mbits)
label your tracks: firstname_lastname_title_min (minutes)
include a pdf with <100 words about your piece and your person
put Gyumri Gardens as subject line
send the link for your works to info@datscharadio.de or your files directly via wetransfer et al.
Note: You must own the (copy)rights of your production, be it sound or writing!
How to listen You can listen online on datscharadio.de and selected radio stations to be announced in due time You can listen on site (the location of the studio in Gyumri has not yet been decided on, but will be published soon on our social media channels and on datscharadio.de) We are fond of an open studio situation: performers, spontaneous live guests and visitors are welcome.
Sustainability A For Datscha Radio, sustainability is not defined by the universal availability of replicable products, but by the experience of togetherness and local knowledge that is remembered and translated into a shared future.
B You are heartily invited to take out your old radios from their closets and experiment with analogue reception in the station’s vicinity.
Fees Datscha Radio works on a non-commercial basis, therefore we cannot reimburse you for your valuable time and work. What we have to offer is a radio station and art platform for discovery, exchange and networking. In the off-line world.
Copyrights All copyrights stay with the artists. For more information about the project, please see datscharadio.de
For any questions, please write to: info@datscharadio.de Facebook: datscharadio.de || Insta: datscharadio
Already getting excited about traveling to Gyumri, Armenia in September!
On invitation of and in collaboration with the art collective Art Basis, Datscha Radio will do some radio gardening in the city of Gyumri.
The community art space and residency project is located in a building in Mush-2 district in Gyumri which houses people who have been living in temporary constructions after the 1988 earthquake. The space is imagined as an opportunity to initiate collaborative processes between the community and the visiting artists and guests. This initiative will serve as a space to engage in collective practices, experiences, initiatives and projects, art production and research and other activities in collaboration with the neighborhood.
Art Basis
The project is being supported by Culture Moves Europe and the Goethe Institute Brussels.
Datscha Radio is pleased to announce a new radio production for the Austrian Broadcast Station Ö1
Kunst zum Hören presents: The Traveling Garden Radio Thursday 25th 2024, 11:03 pm
Lan: DE; EN Supervisor: Elisabeth Zimmermann
Gabi Schaffner has created two 20-minute collages for Kunst zum Hören. The first takes us to Altenburg in Thuringia in the summer of 2023, where Datscha Radio sent its field research into the ether several times. The second block dives into geographically more distant horticultural worlds of sound. A conversation between Elisabeth Zimmermann and the artist will provide further insights into the traveling garden radio and the practice of world gardening.
Team: Gabi Schaffner, Ernst Markus Stein, Helen Thein
Beiträge: Spaziergang zur Elisabethquelle – Wolfgang Paritzsch; Der Historische Laubengarten – Grit Martinez und Chris Junk; Gärten in der Ukraine – Gartengemeinschaft Einheit.
Gartengeschichte in Altenburg – Christine Nienhold; Unser Gemeinschaftsgarten – Anonym; Licht und Sterne – Frank Vohla; Laubengang – Gabi Schaffner, Ernst Markus Stein.
Open Call Tracks: Apfel Birne Quitte – Tiger Stangl; Samensinfonie. Aus dem Leben eines Kerns – Ian Joyce, Tiger Stangl
Musiken/Sampling/Mixe: Ernst Markus Stein. Jingle Streuobst unter Verwendung von „Frau Holle“ – Goldmarie
Field Recordings: Gabi Schaffner
Datscha Radio International
Datscha Radio Ii, 2022
Team: Tina- Marie Friedrich, Gabi Schaffner
Beiträge: Towards Atmospheric Care – Hanna Husberg und Agata Marzecovas; Kilimandscharo – Inari Virmakoski; The River Ii Bridge – Tina-Marie Friedrich; Weather Changes – Heli Paaso-Rantala; Cloud Engineering – Filips Stanislavskis
Open Call Tracks: Love is in the Air – Jaakko Autio; On The Inhale – Elisabeth Shores
Datscha Radio Taipei, 2019
Team: Gabi Schaffner, Gabriel de Seta
Beiträge: Waste Culture – Margareth Shiu/Bamboo Curtain Studio, Mark van Tongeren, Hauyu Yang; Listening Culture – Laila Fan; Praying Machine Hacks – Lu Yi mit Gabriel de Seta; Listening Culture Reprise – Laila Fan
Musiken: Sea Waste 7.0 – Ken Yu; Praying Machine – Lu Yi
Field Recordings: Gabi Schaffner
Datscha Radio Madrid, 2018
Team: Gabi Schaffner, Maite Camacho/InSonora Artist Collective, Victor Jara/MediaLab Prado
Beiträge: Esta es Una Plaza – Alberto Peralta; Plant Sensor Music – Joaquin Diaz, KTA Martin; El Hospital de las Plantas – Óscar Domínguez mit Eva Kurly; Retiro Garden – Daniel Horcajo; The Batan Community Garden – Irene Prins
Musiken: 9 Olas – Carolina Carubba; Plant Music – Joaquin Diaz, KTA Martin; Atomic Garden – Alberto Garcia.
Freshly printed: Datscha Radio’s documentation about Radio Gardening in Altenburg. 32 pages. 2023. With contributions by: Gabi Schaffner, Grit Martinez, Helen Thein, Luise Krischke (Fliegender Salon). Graphic design: tigerworx. Radio art concepts: Ernst Markus Stein, Gabi Schaffner, Helen Thein. Number of copies (Datscha Radio): 250; (Fliegender Salon) 250.
Our Altenburg adventures include the chapters:
Sommergartenradio (30. Juni 2023) – Summergarden Radio
Laubenlauschen (3.-6. August 2023) – Listening to Arbours
Streuobstradio (1. Oktober 2023) – OrchardFruitRadio
Der Fliegende Salon: “Experimentierfreude im Fokus”
Summary in English
Radiorezepturen – Radio Recipes
All participating artists and gardeners are invited or order or fetch their personal copies. An online PDF will be available soon! For Berlin/international artists: please write to info(at)datscharadio.de.
As part of the Cense (Central European Network of Sonic Ecologies) symposium program “Beyond Listening” Datscha Radio’s approach to experimental ethnography was presented.
Next to decidedly experimental settings (“NightGardening”, Berlin 2019), Datscha Radio engages in cross-cultural garden research and broadcasted from Spain (2018), Taiwan (2019), and most recently, Finland (Art Biennial Ii, “Air on Air”, 2022). The project also sprouts radiophonic solo off-shoots exploring seasonal states of mind (KAAMOS Radio, Finland 2021) or topographies (Harakka Island Radio, Finland 2023). In my lecture, I introduced several of Datscha Radio’s abroad iterations and discussed the perspectives of nomadic radio stations as havens of situated knowledge.
Audio examples taken from interviews about plant care work with: – Subrabha Seshan (Gurukula, Botanic Sanctuary, India 2017) – Eva Kurly with Oscar Domínguez (Hospital de Plantas, Spain 2018)
From 2 to 6 pm on Thanksgiving Day, October 1, 2023, we will be broadcasting directly from a Thuringian orchard. What is this sound of apples dropping into the wet grass? Of the spores floating amongst pollen and dirt? What recipe did your grandma use for her plum jam? What are sounds of the pleasures of harvesting the goods of the garden? Datscha Radio wants to find out – and needs your radiophonic autumn treasures!
Altenburg in Thuringia is the place where the card game of Skat was invented. The city looks back on a great past as a baroque center of trade and gardening.
Datscha Radio will accompany the activities of the Fliegender Salon Altenburg this summer. Starting on the 30th of June within the frame of the Altenburger Nacht der Museen. We will broadcast live from the “Historischer Laubengarten” together with guests and visitors, and with a talk about the history of allotment gardening in the 1920s.
Together with the human and more-than-human islanders and artist guests, and under the umbrella of the Nomad Academy of Experimental Arts and its founder Kari Yli-Annala, we created a daily 3-hour program from May 25-28 on Harakka Island, Helsinki.
Click on the images to read the resumes on datscharadio.de
Ms Schaffner is most pleased to announce a 4 day radio event on the island of Harakka Finland. We will broadcast on 92 MHz from 2-5pm on the 25-28th of May.
Just in case you did not know: the 22nd of May is The Day of the Impossible, as proclaimed by the infamous musician Sun Ra. For a whole week from the 22nd on, the Finnish media artist and performer Kari Yli-Annala invites the world to join the artistic activities at Nomad Academy on Harakka Island, Helsinki. This year’s theme is The Magic and the Analogue. – And what can be more magic and analogue than a W-Lan-free radio station on an island?
Together with the human and more-than-human islanders and artist guests, and under the umbrella of the Nomad Academy of Experimental Arts and is founder Kari Yli-Annala we will create a 3-hour program for 4 days.
The Island
‘Magpie’ island is situated a 6 min ferry ride from the center of Helsinki, a mostly flat and rocky slab of basalt and mica gneiss, streaked with magnetit and other shimmering minerals. Harakka Island is not resting still: with a speed of 3-4 mm (30-40 cm pro century) it continues to rise above sea level. It is nowadays uninhabited, but hosts a nature preservation and education center, and very diverse buildings and barracks that date back to the time of the Russian occupation. The festival’s main location, Nomad Academy, was formerly a telecommunication center.
The Open Call
With your contribution you can help to create the ‘impossible’ radio on Harakka Island.
Open Call: Air on Air Datscha Radio will broadcast from the 8th Art Biennale in Ii, Finland. From June 15-19, 2022.
About
Art Ii Biennial addresses current themes, participates in the public discussion through the methods of art and boldly combines the rich cultural heritage of Ii with contemporary art.
The main focus of the event is ecological, economical, social and cultural sustainability.
This year’s theme is In the Air. How can the interconnected immateriality of air be communicated using the methods of art.
Text: https://artii.fi/
Broadcasting about and listening to ‘just air’ seems to be an unusual concept. This is mainly because we take air for granted. Actually, it is not. The next planet with a probability of having an atmosphere breathable for our species lies 159 lightyears in a distance.
Datscha Radio’s 2022 event “Air on Air” will present a 24/5 hour radio stream of the air in Ii. For three hours each day we will invite artists and locals alike into our studio to talk about air and present selected works from the open call. For the remaining hours a microphone will transmit the atmospheres of Ii. “Air on Air” will happen from the 16th to the 19th of June 2022, we will be broadcasting directly from the park of the Biennal, close to the banks of the river Iijoki. The broadcasts can be heard online on datscharadio.de and via micro FM on the grounds of the Biennale.
The Call
Most people consider air sound as boring, since it contains not much/redundant/ uninteresting information. The contrary might be true. Air does not only form the background of anything we perceive by our sense of hearing: It constitutes the very precondition of why we hear at all. There is no transmission of sound in empty space.
What travels empty space and almost any space though, is radio. In the shape of electromagnetic waves, radio frequencies have been with the cosmos from its very beginning… and they travel on forever, no matter whether they are emitted by cosmic explosions, radioactive matter, microwave ovens, mobile phones, or, in that instance, by Datscha Radio.
Let us broadcast your ‘airborne’ compositions and sonic musings together under the midsummer skies of Northern Finland. Datscha Radio is looking forward to your radiophonic input.
Do not (!) send any links to downloads. Do not send your work as mail attachment. Thank you!
Please provide a pdf with two or three lines (400 spaces max) each about the piece and its relevance for the theme. Two or three lines (400 spaces max) about yourself, including a website if desired.
Add a line as to whether you agree with having your broadcast work archived with Datscha Radio’s online documentation.
Please put “Air on Air” as a subject line.
Deadline: May 20, 2022
What Datscha Radio can offer
Datscha Radio works on a non-commercial basis, therefore we cannot reimburse you for your valuable time and work. Instead, what we have to offer is this:
your work will be presented within the frame of the Art Biennal Ii 15-19 June, locally on FM,and worldwide on stream
a radio art platform for discovery, exchange and networking
sustainability: the documentation of “Air on Air” will be archived and made accessible on mixcloud (your agreement provided)
Datscha Radio will travel to Finland! Very happy to announce that our proposal “Air ‘on Air'” has been accepted by the curator’s team of the Art Biennal Ii. For information about the festival, see https://artii.fi/ Datscha Radio Ii will be realised by Gabi Schaffner and Tina-Marie Friedrich, allgirls Berlin international. More news soon !
On the invitation of the Serlachius Art Residency in Mänttä, Finland, KAAMOS RADIO staged two 14-hour long broadcasts from its mobile studio in the town of Mänttä. In collaboration with the Berlin/Bratislava artist Marold Langer-Philippsen who supported the broadcast via a 6-hour live stream dedicated to a journey to Mars, “Aelita”.
Kuunvalo nukahti ja tähdet katosivat taivaalta. Ja maa hengitti hiljaa lumen alla. The moonlight fell asleep and the stars disappeared from the sky. And the earth breathed quietly under the snow.
A radiophonic journey into the (sub)arctic winter.
The term ‘Kaamos’ refers to the lightless period of the year (above the 60th latitude) when the sun lingers below the horizon. Kaamos is the time of darkness, of stillness and quietude and of the arctic light, a time for storytelling, contemplation and of taking a rest. A Sami legend tells us of the ‘Nest days’, because it was believed that the sun rests like an egg in its nest during that time. ‘Kaamos’ also stands for a mental state that is difficult to endure and is also used synonymously for winter depression in Finnish culture.
LOCATION The town of Mäntää-‐Vilppula is located approximatly 180 km northeast of Tampere, on the shores of Lake Melasjärvi. It is surrounded by a sparsely populated landscape made up of forests, lakes and rivers. Temperatures in January and February go from – 20 to -‐2 degrees Celsius. Northern lights occur at times.
KAAMOS RADIO will track both the phenomenon and variations of its inner states -‐ as a local radio sphere -‐ in field recording -‐ in talks with artists and musicians from the area -‐ via congenial guest contributions and radio streams -‐ as an ongoing attempt to respond to the conditions of light and temperature
PLEASE SHARE WITH ME -‐ theme specific compositions -‐ favourite winter‐time stories -‐ poems and spoken word -‐ recordings and investigations Please send your files via wetransfer to kaamos@datscharadio.de. Please provide two or three lines each about the piece and yourself including a website, if possible. Please put Kaamos Radio Contribution as a subject line.
LIVE STREAM As the project is still in its planning stage, the final dates need to be confirmed yet. Scheduled are -‐ Saturday, February 13, 2021 -‐ Saturday, February 20, 2021 The length of the broadcasts is between 2 and 6 hours on the respective days. DEADLINE Please submit your audio pieces until the 3rd of February 2021
KAAMOS RADIO is a temporary radio art project located at the residency studios of the Serlachius Museum in Mänttä/Central Finland. It is initiated and maintained by the Berlin sound artist and performer Gabi Schaffner, in cooperation with Sophea Lerner (Open Radio, Helsinki),Marold Langer-Philippsen (radiolada, Bratislava) and aporee.org (Berlin)
SCHEDULE The program will grow with the flow of the events. There is no fixed time schedule. You’ll find a list of all participating artists on the datscharadio website in due time. KAAMOS RADIO CAN BE HEARD ON ● datscharadio.de ● openradio.in (play.openradio.in/public/openradio) ● in collaboration with other radio stations and projects (if interested, please, let me know) Contact: kaamos@datscharadio.de
Pleased to announce that since November 1 Datscha Radio will be broadcast within the frame of the COMMON WAVES festival.
Super pleased also to find ourselves among long-standing friends, colleagues and collaborators. Please have a look at the schedule. My personal thanks to Ute Seitz!
Common Waves is an International Radio Collective launched during Tbilisi Architecture Biennial 2020. Along the theme of the Biennial “What do we have in common” we will explore the different layers of common spaces – public, collectively organised or imagined spaces of community.
How do we share spaces? What defines the public areas around us? How are they built and what do they sound and look like? Do they serve the needs of communities or individuals, companies or states? Who decides how we move and act in our cities? How can we design open spaces that allow creativity and diversity?
Our answers to these questions may be artistic, activist, professional, transdisciplinary, historical, local, global, subversive or emotional. We believe in the power of independent radio to voice diverse perspectives and promote experimental approaches – even more so in international cooperations. This is why our collective is formed by various community and artist radios, podcasters and individuals.
The Common Waves Collective will produce and curate interviews, documentaries, sound art and DIY radio formats during Tbilisi Architecture Biennial 2020 and beyond.
It is
unusual enough to broadcast from a garden, creating a studio situation exposed
to the immediate surroundings like weather, temperatures and background sounds.
With “Nightgardening” In 2019, Datscha Radio took its experimental approach to
the garden as a matrix for self-organization, autopoiesis and ecological radio
art, even one step further. How can we approach the audible ecospheres of the
night, what stories can be told, what fragrances turned into frequencies?
The compilation presents a mix of excerpts taken from “Plots & Prophecies” (2017) and “Nightgardening” (2019), followed by palimpsests and passages from Datscha Radio’s 2020 iteration “Listening to the Universe”. This latter event, happening from the 11th to the 13th of August, was dedicated to the Perseides’ meteor showers. Talks and readings, concerts and performances revolved around themes like sonification, storytelling, and cosmic relations in the so-called Anthropocene.
Credits
Datscha Radio:
Nachtgartenkosmos
A radio(art) collage by Gabi Schaffner. Length: 51:48 min A commission for Cashmere Radio
List of participating artists and
titles of their contributions in order of their
appearance
I What happened before
Intros Datscha Radio from the 2017 festival “Plots and Prophecies”
Body Garden Experiment by Kerry Morrison, read by Kate Donovan + Rosanna Lovell in conversation with Gregor Kaspar (Cut up)
Carolina Carubba: Kalimba Rain. Datscha Radio Madrid, 2018
II Nightgardening
Lukatoyboy: 7“ Bird Vinyls
Marold Langer-Philippsen: Maschkera (Excerpts)
Cutup: Niina Lehtonen-Braun: Iltakahvit + Kat Austen: The Beetles’ Harvest Supper
Niki Matita, Walter Schulze: Secret-en-plein-aire (Excerpt)
Kate Donovan: Gratitude Ritual
Peggy Sylopp with Gabi Schaffner: Dämmerungsspaziergang
III Listening to the Universe
Jingle Universe (Helen Thein)
Ally Bishop: Possible Vehicles for Time Travel
Kate Donovan with Sasha Engelmann: Satellite Séance
Tiger Stangl: Milchstraße links unten
Vladimir Kryuchev: Nye Sbylos (Some Dreams Never Come True)
Jasmina Al-Qaisi and Helena Otto „To the Belly and Back: Star Taste“ (Excerpts)
Elo Masing: Day Sky Improvisation +| Gabi Schaffner: Cosmogonic Storytelling I (Mix!)
Tim Schleinitz and Helen Thein: GDR Science Fiction Movies + Niki Matita/Elo Masing: Nativitas (Cutup) + Tiger Stangl: Ein Stern geht auf (Backdrop, modified)
Ela Spalding: Moonrise Reflection / Gabi Schaffner: A Walk between Bamboo and Ghosts (Backdrop)
Marta Zapparoli (and Kate Donovan): Echoes from Outer Space
Sarah Washington: Datscha Owl, Datscha Radio Jingle 2012
Selection,
editing and additional sounds: Gabi Schaffner, 2020
A radio art festival by Datscha Radio. Realised by Gabi Schaffner, Helen Thein, Kate Donovan and Niki Matita
Every year in August, the Northern Hemisphere’s night sky is graced by meteor showers – the Perseids. Datscha Radio used this astronomical spectacle as the departure point for a 48-hour festival of radio art, from moonset at 2:04 pm on August 11, until 2 pm on August 13, 2020.
Datscha Radio –
a non-commercial, independent, nomadic and interdisciplinary Berlin radio art
initiative – has been engaged in expanding the culture of radio creation since
2012. It aims to create new listening experiences beyond the dichotomies of
culture/nature and sender/receiver. It is transmitted from an allotment garden
in the north of Berlin.
“Listening to the Universe – Radiophonien des Alls“ was dedicated to themes and music inspired by the phenomenon of the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.
With a broad spectrum of topics – from cosmogonical myths to the signals of meteor detectors, from starlight-inspired violin improvisations to experimental horoscopes – Datscha Radio traced the path of these ‘falling stars’ to their manifestations in space and matter as the fictions and artistic responses that are bound up with them.
A documentation of our shows will be uploaded on mixcloud in due time.
How does making radio in the garden sound like? Between bugs and beetle bread, under the spell of the moon, in the small hours of the morning. How can the garden and its ecologies resound in radio?
These questions lay at the core of my archival and radiophonic investigations of what “makes” Datscha Radio special. On commission of Kunstradio Vienna a 51 minute sound collage was put together, to be broadcast on – Mai 17 – 23 pm CET – https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20200517/598436/Datscha-Radio-ein-Radiogarten – Produced by: Elisabeth Zimmermann
Includes excerpts of Datscha Radio 2017 and the Nightgardening series 2019 plus additional material. Datscha Radio Berlin is realized with Kate Donovan, Helen Thein and Niki Matita.
Für die Eröffnung des neuen Sendestudios des frbb am 31. März 2020 im Haus der Statistik am Berliner Alexanderplatz hat Datscha Radio die 10-minütige Radioklangkollage „Datscha Radio in a Nutshell“ beigesteuert, die auf datscharadio.de nachgehört werden kann.
The night is, far more than the day, a sphere of transmission. Fragrances and odours are perceived more strongly, the ear is sharpened, the superiority of the visual recedes. Since its inception, Datscha Radio has paid special attention to the night. In the three-part event series NACHTGÄRTNERN [NIGHT GARDENING], Datscha Radio intends to fill the living space of the night in a synaesthetic and radiophonic way. Each station is located in a different garden in Berlin. We will broadcast live, from exactly sunset to sunrise. (Depending upon transmission date, the transmitting time will vary).
I The Night of the Nightingales (April 30th) Datscha Radio explores the essence of the night on the first evening with a focus on the nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos). April 30th, 20.32 – 5:33, May 1st, 2019. II Frequencies and Fragrances ( (August 8th) Datscha Radio will take one step further in its radio-sensory exploration of the nightly garden. How may scents translate into radio? August 8th, 20:46 – 5:39, August 9th III Night Walks, Rituals and Ceremonies ( (October) 21st of October, 5:57 pm – 22nd of October 7:45 am. Uneven ground, restricted view, in the truest sense of the word unforeseen obstacles: Walking in the dark activates different abilities of our senses and physics. Body boundaries shift and expand, and with them also thinking and imagination go new ways…
On the evening of the award ceremony, Datscha Radio will release three radiophonic loops at Humboldthain Club, that can be captured on site with radio receivers.
“Radio Seed Bombs” is an acoustic cross-pollination and
self-fertilization in one, conceived by radio artists Kate Donovan, Niki
Matita and Gabi Schaffner.
“In “Seed Dispersal”, Kate Donovan explores the
sounds and stories of various seeds on their journeys through water,
air, and bodies: a cosmos of dispersal, told in radio snippets and sent
upon a breeze. With sounds and voices from Pablo Juanes; Molly, Hunter
& Scout.
Niki Matita presents “Babosa”: Eine Erkundung der
Welt jener ungeliebten Gartenbewohnerinnen, die in vielen Menschen Ekel
und Unmut hervorrufen. Niki Matita untersucht, ob, und wenn ja wozu,
Nacktschnecken nützlich sein können, welche kulturelle und spirituelle
Bedeutung ihnen zukommt und welche Abhilfe es gegen sie gibt.
With “Gymnospermia”, Gabi Schaffner will broadcast
an illustrious potpourri of Sicilian fruit descriptions, seed sounds,
lawnmower microsymphonies, and tiny garden soundscapes in fourteen
miniature compositions. With the voices of: Paolo Cavarro, Hans Kellet,
Dirk Heiden, Kate Donovan and Margarita (courtesy Romila Casile)
In January 2019 Datscha Radio traveled to Taiwan. As one of the selected artists for the Treasure Hill Artist Residency 2019 I was invited to perform research and radio art on site. Six episodes of Datscha Radio explored, together with local artists and residents, the ecology of Taiwan. Among others I was happy to collaborate with the following artists:
Gabriele de Seta Margaret Shiu Rewat Panpipat Wu Tsan Cheng Christine Muyco Fujiu Wang Lu Yi Hauyu Yang Mark van Tongeren Laila Fan Yannik Dauby Hsu Yenting Lori Huang + Sze-Ting and still many more.
The audio archive of our broadcast can be accessed on: https://www.mixcloud.com/datscharadio17/drt-6-waste-culture-1/
Place: Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei
Time: 11th January – 11th March 2019
Neighbourhoods, networks and radio – the thing that they all have in common is that the fine threads of their connections are only visible as temporary events: in celebrations and festivals, in exchange and support. They are organic by nature; they can expand, contract, divide, they need care and pathways… similar to a garden, whose inhabitants make contact above, as well as underneath, the ground. Datscha Radio’s installation “Unearthing the Archive” traces what’s below the surface, and the communality of these networks. For the exhibition at c/o Kunstpunkt, Datscha Radio is earthing and reassembling its archive, and allowing it to resonate.
“Unearthing the Archive” transmits performative pearls, linguistic matter, and music from the micro/macro cosmos of human as well as vegetal neighbours. Between molehills and mobile radios, deck chairs offer visitors the opportunity to make themselves comfortable and listen in to selected shows transmitted from the archive.
The group exhibition RAUMOHNERAUM #3: In the Neighbourhood at c/o Kunstpunkt Berlin was part of an exhibition series organised by the Netzwerk Freier Berliner Projekträume und -initiativen e. V..
Artistic Archivists: Gabi Schaffner, Kate Donovan, Niki Matita, Helen Thein Featured DR artists on Mole Loops: Frieder Butzmann, Carolina Carrubba, Joaquín Diaz, Alberto García, Anna Katarina Martin, Eva Kurly, Ryan McFayden, Plants and Empire, Suetzu Flight Master’s Whistle, Martha Zapparoli
Radio Gardening in Madrid: The residency involved research and documentation work on local (urban) gardens as well as the realisation of a Madrid Datscha Radio off-shoot.The one-day radio station was installed in a geodetic tent in the community garden in Lavapies, “Esta Es Una Plaza”.
All
reports, diaries and observations on Madrid’s urban gardening
communities, its historic parks and a documentation of the Datscha Radio
events staged at „Esta es una Plaze“ are accessible online on datscharadio.de. A publication with Medialab Prado is in preparation.
Participating artists: Alberto García, Anna Katarina Martin, Carolina Carrubba, Eva Kurly, Joaquín Diaz and the gardeners.
A five-day festival celebrates the future(s) of the garden and broadcasts directly from an allotment garden in the Berlin north. In August 2017 Datscha Radio broadcast again from my garden in Berlin Pankow, with the joint support of Freie Radios Berlin Brandenburg (frbb).
Datscha Radio 17 was realised by: Gabi Schaffner, Kate Donovan, Niki Makita, Helen Thein, Suki Shanti Osman und Verena Kuni.
Studio Support: Studio Ansage, Pi Radio (both FRBB)
With “Plots and Prophecies – Parzellenprognosen” Datscha Radio 17 created an interdisdiplinary program broadcast 24/5 from the 25th – 29th August 2017 – on stream, via micro FM and on selected days on 88.4 (90.7 in Potsdam). Aligned with the length of the festival, the radio makers, artists and guests focused on five subject areas:
Hortus Politicus
Symbioses
Biotopes in Future Perfect
Birds and Bees
Subterranean Meditations
The process of radio making – otherwise quite a hidden event – became
transparent in the Datscha’s winter garden and outside studio
transforming the privacy of the garden into a public space for art and
communication. Datscha Radio 17 was supported by the Pankow Amt für
Weiterbildung und Kultur and the Hans and Charlotte Krull Foundation.
The format “Midday Discussion” was developed in cooperation with the
Heinrich Böll Foundation Berlin. Streaming support came from Udo Noll,
aporee.org.
Complete documentation available here. Press articles can be viewed here.
Research and radio on the premises of the state garden show Giessen with a focus on German garden culture(s). A converted ex-GDR caravan served as our radio and research homestead. Realised with Pit Schultz and Gärtnerpflichten e. V., Gießen. Prize Artist Competition Landengartenschau 2014.
Our aim
was the exploration of local traditions and perspectives of gardening
while using a variety of documentary modes. In the course of our
research a public archive was created consisting of ethnographic field
notes, photographs, protocols, talks and sounds.
Instead of
processing these multitudes of data into scientific knowledge they were
instantly broadcast via the medium of radio. A so-called
“Audiokomposter” developed by Pit Schultz decomposed the material and
turned it into a continually changing soundscape. This process of
composting and decomposition found its poetic counterpoint in the
untamed growth of plants around the caravan. In August, a one-day
festival invited guests and visitors to further discussion and
participation.
Publication: Datscha Radio/Audiokomposter. In: Draussen, pp. 62-71.
“To create a garden for listening and
international cooperation which appeals to all of the senses – this is
the aim of Datscha Radio”
Datscha Radio 2012 was an art and culture project conceived of together with net activist Pit Schultz and Verena Kuni (Radio and Visual Media, Goethe University Frankfurt). We broadcast 24/8 around the clock on 24th – 31st of August on stream on datscharadio.de, via micro transmission in the garden and on 24th, 25th and 26th August from 8pm on on reboot.fm/88.4 FM Berlin.
Garden
culture and Berlin culture belong together. The garden colony of the
“Einigkeit” (Unitiy) was established as early as 1915. Less than 200 m
from this garden and until 1989, ran the Berlin Wall that separated the
Eastern “Rosenthal” from the Western “Maerkisches Viertel”.
The “Datscha” (summerhouse) in the allotment garden No 665 was built in
the mid-60s and has a floor space of approx. 60 sq.. The garden has 600
sq.. There are four patches for growing vegetables, two big flower beds,
and several fruit trees on the lawn.
Our radio program integrated local and international protagonists,
artists, musicians, poets and guests.
Datscha Radio’s concept of “A Garden in the Air” extended on a variety of levels and contents: Participation of neighbors, hospitality, “garden kitchen”, sound art, live concerts and events, interviews and talks. Datscha Radio acted both as a meeting place and as a space for productions of art. Participating artists in the garden: More than 50 Berlin and international composers sound artists and radio makers answered Datscha Radio’s open call. Datscha Radio was realized with the support of the Amt für Weiterbildung und Kultur, Pankow. The project was realised in cooperation with the Berlin artist radio reboot.fm.
Listen Here: 
