1.11. Radio talk with Warrick Swinney: Radio Artist presents an essayistic travel to the Soviet Union
In the second Radio Talk of this semester the musician and artist Warrick Swinney will present his essay »Sealed trains and the Palisades of Culture«. He discusses his travels and music concerts in the Soviet Union and former East Germany during the late 1980s. His historic – sometimes amusing, sometimes tragic – anecdotes will be accompanied by musical compositions.
Time:
Tuesday, 1 November 2022, 7 p.m.
Location:
Glass Cube in the Limona
Steubenstraße 8
99423 Weimar
The talk will be held in English.
The journey of this Radio Talk will start with a common ground of two totalitarian systems during the 1980s: South Africa and the USSR. Violence, censorship and propaganda were tropes of both systems. However, Swinney will also tell more subtle stories about everyday life of regular folk caught up in an absurd system over which they are powerless. Swinney – himself a part of the 1980s South African music scene – looks more closely at the art scene of the time: There, powerlessness resulted in cynicism and wit as weapons. He describes how irony and satire became coping mechanisms of artists during Cold War times. Swinney will also talk about the plights of exiles and refugees he met – and connections to the current war in Ukraine. Swinney here sees »the ghosts of the past informing the future.«
The title »Sealed trains and the Palisades of Culture« draws from Swinney’s experiences of travelling in trains which were eerily sealed wherever he went in the USSR. Even the hotel windows were all bolted tightly shut. A closed world. Simultaneously »Palisade« referred in South Africa to military steel fencing – and hence also to a sealed unit. However, sealing others out rather than in. »These are the hidden signs of vast networks of deceptions and lies some of which were laid bare when Chernobyl blew its roof off…«
About Warrick Swinney:
Warrick Swinney has a deep-rooted interest in sound, music and politics. Swinney's approach to sound art is rooted in a solid DIY aesthetic. This stems from his involvement in the post-punk ethic at Shifty Studios in the 1980s. These were created during the turbulent years between the collapse of apartheid and South Africa's transition to democracy. He worked at Milestone Studios (2000-2018) in Cape Town in sound design and music production, as well as performance and sound-based art, before moving into academia to pursue sound research and teaching.