SONNTAG, 23. April 2006, 23:05. - 23:45, Ö1
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KUNSTRADIO - RADIOKUNST




(click to enlarge)

„Breaking Points“

by Timothy Didymus and Glen Capra
Kunstradio Broadcast for the EU Project "radio.territories“
LIVE in 5.1 Surround via OE1DD
Sound engineer: Anna Kunzio, Stefan Wirtitsch

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What are the options for pluralist communication in today’s European metropolitan areas where societies are characterised by their heterogeneity? Who will be actually heard there – and by using what kinds of channels? The way this communicative diversity manifests itself artistically is shown by a series of public space interventions across Europe as part of the project “radio.territories” which was started in October 2005 and will run until September 2006 involving a network of European radio and media art initiatives in Berlin, Sofia, London, Budapest, Vienna and Bratislava.

Radio territories? Radio knows per se no borders. Radio waves simply spread – in defiance of any national or political border. Broadcasts are on the air everywhere, all over the world, yet radio knows no place. Hence, the term territory refers to both the state’s and society’s regulation of the ether and the programmes and the resulting radio landscapes.

Kunstradio invited the British sound artist and film maker, Timothy Didymus, to realise a new project in Vienna as part of “radio.territories”. Didymus played an active part in the development of the KOAN music engine and was among the pioneers in computer generated music in the 1990s. In 2003 he caused a sensation at the Ars Electronica Festival with his four day long performance “Dark Symphony” which he had developed on behalf of the Festival for the overall topic “Code – The Language of Our Times”.

Didymus’ new work is about breakthroughs and breaking points. The title “Breaking Points” is obviously meant metaphorically; it refers to the breaking to pieces or breaking open of things and their subsequent re-assembly – a process which has always resulted in something new. The breakthrough moment of new technologies, as for instance of the Internet and digital media a decade ago, is invariably characterised by the fact that although they’re here and available they take time to enter the overall awareness and to be accepted and dealt with by society on an everyday basis. The “cinematically” thinking artist becomes perceptible when talk is about cuts (jump cuts) interrupting the music’s temporal-spatial continuity and thus rendering the processing both audible and comprehensible.
The piece is based on three different sources of sound: computer generated sound on the one hand and in opposition thereto the analogous sound of a live improvisation on the piano while the third level will rest on pre-recorded comments by the listeners about their approach to and dealing with radio as well as their ideas, imaginations and personal utopia with regard to the medium as a communication apparatus in a Brecht sense. At first all three components are fragmented using a computer controlled technique and then re-assembled for a spatial play-back in 5.1 Surround Sound. This process of re-arranging something allows for a new narrative level to evolve which on a linguistic level is bound to generate as much of the absurd, comical and incomprehensible as it is to come up with surprising contexts.

Those interested in contributing to Timothy Didymus’ „Breaking Points“ through their voice and comments are invited to do so by phone during the artist’s residence from April 18-23. The phone number for leaving statements on the topic “My Radio” and on the future of radio art will be announced on the Kunstradio website under http://kunstradio.at.

"radio.territories" is organised by Orange 94.0.
The partner organisations are: bootlab, Berlin; Inter Space, Sofia; Itchy Bit, Bratislava; ÷1 Kunstradio, Vienna; Resonance104.4FM, London; Tilos Radio, Budapest.



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