Radio has been a medium of listening for more than 100 years – worldwide. This is the subject of the six-part podcast »Listening to the World – 100 Years of Radio Art«. All six episodes were broadcast on Deutschlandfunk Kultur and can now be heard in the ARD Audiothek and wherever podcasts are available.
Radio has accompanied the everyday lives of people all over the world since the 1920s. Radio enriches our knowledge, reflects society and politics and provides entertainment. But it also disseminates propaganda and disinformation or spreads messages of resistance. The podcast »Listening to the World – 100 years of Radio Art« linvites listeners to look back at 100 years of different radiophonic listening cultures and to listen across national borders – connecting experiences and stories about radio transculturally.
Between 2023 and 2024, Professor Nathalie Singer traveled with Frederike Moormann and Lefteris Krysalis to three different regions of the world: to Montevideo in South America, Sagada in Southeast Asia and Johannesburg in southern Africa. Invited by the Goethe-Institut and supported by the local curators Florencia Curci, meLê yamomo and Masimba Hwati, they each organized five-day Bauhaus.listening.workshops with various sound experts.
These people and their stories can now be heard in the podcast »Listening to the World – 100 years of radio art«. With them, the history of radio and listening is told in six episodes- with interviews, sounds and performances from the workshops and the artists involved in the project. They can be listened to in full length on the interactive website »Transcultural Listening Map« at listeningmap.de. Of course, you can also find all episodes in the ARD Audiothek and wherever podcasts are available.
You can listen to the podcast here: https://www.hoerspielundfeature.de/listening-to-the-world-1-6-radionetzwerke-und-machtstrukturen-100.html
About the episodes:
Listening to the World (1/6) - Radio networks and power structures
Cables, masts, satellites - radio technologies and their infrastructures are everywhere. And yet we rarely notice them. Host Yana Adu looks at this global network and its colonial history together with filmmaker Riar Rizaldi and radio artist Alejo Duque. The “Radio Malabar” transmitter in present-day Indonesia was built on behalf of a colonial power: in 1923 by the Netherlands, exploiting the local population. The radio link established in 1914 between Namibia, Togo and Germany also served to consolidate German colonial rule.
Listening to the World (2/6) - Radio in Resistance
It is relatively easy to build and operate your own radio station. Resistance movements in various political systems and times have made use of this fact. For example, the guerrilla group FARC operated an entire network of stations in the mountains of Colombia for decades. In Indonesia, there was and still is a large amateur radio scene. And even state transmitters of the apartheid regime in South Africa broadcast subversive messages. Resistance movements create ephemeral radiophonic spaces that make room for community building, political utopias and social alliances.
Listening to the World (3/6) - Listening to the Earth
Colonialism is based on the oppression, exploitation and destruction of people and nature. In the process, memories, knowledge and stories were often suppressed. Radio is often an instrument for uncovering such stories. Guely Morato, Victor Mazon and Cynthia Marangwanda work artistically and activistically. They suggest listening: What do lithium mines in Bolivia, where natural resources are still being exploited today, sound like? What do we hear at the grave of an English colonial ruler, which lies on one of the sacred Matobo mountains in Zimbabwe?
Listening to the World (4/6) - The free radio scene
“Radyo Sagada” in the Philippines, “Radio Caso” and “La Voz Indigena” in Argentina - community radios connect people in their neighborhoods around the world. They challenge hegemonic structures and geopolitical territories. They form coalitions. They often fight with the precariat. Sometimes also with censorship. Sound artist Florencia Curci and radio presenter Tendayi Chakanyuka analyze these processes “from below” and what they produce: Diverse soundscapes and radio utopias.
Listening to the World (5/6) - Listening to the archives
How do you deal with intangible cultural assets, including oral traditions? For example, colonial sound recordings, most of which are still in European archives? Ethnomusicologist LaVerne de la Peña calls for easy access to the archives. The keyword 'restitution' usually refers to the return of looted objects. “But I don't want the objects back. I want the stories back,” says spoken word artist and poet Nesindano Namises. How can we rethink archiving on the basis of indigenous traditions?
Listening to the World (6/6) - Beyond the audible
What do collective listening experiences that focus on global justice look like? How can communities use radio techniques and practices to transcend borders and create transcultural spaces? Presenter Duduzile Masuku, musician Rani Jambak and radio producer Rodrigo Ríos Zunino talk about circular feedback loops and how everything is connected to everything else. And they imagine a future in which we actively listen to each other. Not just with our ears, but with our whole bodies. To then tell other - new and anti-colonial - stories. For ourselves and for all those who came before us and those who will come after us.
Listening to the World - 100 years of Radio Art
A podcast by Nathalie Singer, Lefteris Krysalis and Frederike Moormann
Host: Yana AduCuratorial collaboration: Florencia Curci, Masimba Hwati, meLê Yamomo
With: Riar Rizaldi, Alejo Duque, Dieter Daniels, Naledi Chai, Sekibakiba Lekgoathi, Tendayi Chakanyuka, Cynthia Marangwanda, Guely Morato, Victor Mazon Gardoqui, Masimba Hwati, Florencia Curci, Duduzile Masuku, Ntone Edjabe, Gwen Gaongen, La Voz Indigena, Nesindano Namises, LaVerne C. de la Peña, Reginald Tinavapi, Siviwe James, Rani Jambak, Rodrigo Ríos Zunino, meLê yamomo
Composition: Guely Morató, Victor Mazon Gardoqui, Rani Jambak, Rodrigo Ríos Zunino, Cynthia Marangwanda, Damien Marcus, Alejo Duque, Riar RizaldiAssistant Director: Paul HaeberlinMixing: Michael Kube
Project lead: Nathalie Singer, Petra Roggel, Marcus GammelProduction: Deutschlandfunk Kultur/Bauhaus-Universität Weimar/ Goethe-Institut/ Haus der Kulturen der Welt 2024