Datscha Radio sendet im kleinen Umkreis des Historischen Laubengartens ganz analog auf UKW auf 90.6 Mhz. Die Technik, die wir hierzu verwenden, ist ein Transmitter mit sehr geringer Reichweite. Laubenlauschen verwendet das Radio, um zum gemeinsamen Hören zu ermuntern… in Zeiten allgegenwärtiger digitaler Geräte eine echte Seltenheit!
Bringen Sie ihr altes Radio doch mit in den Garten, packen Sie ein Sitzkissen dazu und vielleicht ein Getränk und lauschen Sie mit !
Auch – die Altenburger BürgerInnen haben es bemerkt – unsere Postkarten sind fertig gedruckt und liegen an den üblichen verdächtigen Orten der Stadt aus sowie im Vereinhaus der Einheit e. V..
Das Wetter war wechselhaft und regnerisch an diesem letzten Junitag. Die Pfützen auf den Wegen zur Gartenkolonie „Einheit“ waren so tief, dass wir eigentlich mit Gummistiefeln hätte anreisen sollen. Stattdessen reisten wir mit selbstgeschneiderten Kleidern im Stil der 1920er Jahre an. Denn im Rahmen der Lange Nacht der Museen in Altenburg konzentrierte sich das Motto des Festes im Historischen Laubengarten auf das Gründungsjahr der Kolonie: „Ein Tag im Juni 1923“.
Die kleine holzgezimmerte Laube, die Datscha Radio des Regens wegen als Studio nutzte, war nicht nur mit Porzellan, originaler Tischwäsche und einer Hängelampe aus Messing dekoriert, sondern auch mit einem alten sogenannten Volksempfänger. Gut möglich, dass in den Schrebergärten damals auch schon Radio gehört wurde, denn 1923 war auch das Jahr der ersten Rundfunkausstrahlung in Deutschland.
Die Laube, bevor sie Radiostudio wurde. Foto: Courtesy Verein Historischer Laubengarten.
Um trotz des widrigen Wetters die geplante UKW-Übertragung im August aus dem Laubengarten zu testen, wurde unser Mini-Transmitter auf einen gut vier Meter langen Fichtenast montiert. Zu Hilfe kam uns dabei Frank Vohla, Pächter des benachbarten „Sternengartens“ und Hobbyastronom. Auch der Sternengarten ist ein Projekt des Vereins: Ein unter die Dachluke montiertes Teleskop wird dort künftigen Gästen astronomische Beobachtungen erlauben.
Der Regen erwies sich indes als das kleinere Problem. Problematischer war der Ausfall des Telekommunikationsanbieters. Während wir fieberhaft nach einer Lösung suchten und sie nach einiger Zeit auch fanden, füllten sich der Garten und das Buffett. Fast jede der Besucher*innen brachte ein Tablett mit Kuchen und Kanapees oder Getränke für das Buffet. Die Johannisbeere hatte eindeutig Saison.
Frau Petra Klink erzählte über ihren Garten
Frau Ursula Lücke schaute nach dem Buffet
Um 19 Uhr gingen wir versuchsweise auf Sendung mit einem Gespräch mit der Vorsitzenden des Gartenvereins Einheit und Initiatorin des Historischen Laubengartens, Grit Martinez.
Sie gab uns einen Einblick in die Entwicklung der Laubenkolonie in den letzten 40 Jahren. Ob die Gärten vor dem Mauerfall alle besetzt gewesen wären? Hier antwortete Frau Martinez mit einem klaren Ja! Zuvor habe es gut 60 000 Einwohner in der Stadt gegeben, im Laufe der 1990er Jahre waren es bald nur noch etwa 30 000. Nicht nur die Jungen, ganze Familien gingen in den Westen. Immer noch gibt es 66 Laubenkolonien in Altenburg, doch es gibt auch viele leerstehende Parzellen. Während in Berlin und eigentlich allen (west)deutschen Städten die Menschen sich für einen Schrebergarten in lange Wartelisten eintragen müssen, standen noch vor drei Jahren gut 60 Gärten der Einheit verwildert. Die Arbeit des Vereins und Wiederinstandsetzung des Historischen Laubengartens führten zu einer Reaktivierung der verlassenen Grundstücke, von denen inzwischen gut 40 neu vermittelt werden konnten.
Helen Thein war derweil in den anliegenden Gärten unterwegs um die Stimmen der GärtnerInnen einzufangen: Gespräche und Spaziergänge vor und hinter den Gartenzäunen, die in der Einheit e. V. eben nicht superstrikt mit der Schnur auf ihre 1,20 m abgemessen werden.
Das Interesse an einer naturfreundlichen Begärtnerung ist groß, und wird von Alt wie Jung befürwortet… zumindest in dieser Kolonie. Viele Gärten wurden und werden teilweise durch mehrere Generationen bewirtschaftet, so waren bereits Frau Martinez’ Urgroßeltern auf der gleichen Laubenscholle tätig, auf der aktuell auch noch ihre Eltern gärtnern.
Aus deren Nachlass stammte auch die Schelllackplattensammlung, die im musischen Mittelpunkt des Entertainments stand. Ein neuer Gast schritt durch das Gartentor und zog die Blicke auf sich: Ein junger Mann, minuziös im Stil der 20er Jahre gekleidet. Selbstverständlich fragten wir da nach einem Radiotermin…
Chris Junk and Grit Martinez
20:15 war der Zeitpunkt für das ‚offizielle Radiogespräch‘ mit Frau Martinez und der stellvertretenden Vorsitzenden des Vereins, Chris Junk. Gemeinsam blickten wir auf die Geschichte der Laubengärten zurück und erörterten die Aktualität von Subsistenzwirtschaft in der heutigen Zeit. Frau Junk, die die Anlage und Bepflanzung des Historischen Laubengartens übernommen hatte, sprach über den Erhalt alter Obst- und Gemüsesorten – auch mit Augenmerk auf den Klimawandel, der zu Experimenten auch mit neuen Arten und Sämereien herausfordert. Als wichtigstes Merkmal ihres Vereins hoben beide dessen kulturelle Toleranz und Offenheit hervor. So hätten auch mehrere ukrainische Familien eine neue Gartenheimat hier gefunden. Was, wenn nicht Offenheit und Vielfalt, sollte ein gelungenes Gärtnern ermöglichen!?
Im nächsten Radiotalk erfuhren wir auch den Namen des so schick in Knickerbocker und Schiebermütze gekleideten jungen Mannes. Matteo war durch das Plakat zur Museumsnacht auf das Thema des Gartenfestes aufmerksam geworden. Es war eine seltene Gelegenheit aus erster Hand zu erfahren, was den Zauber der 20er Jahre für junge Leute heutzutage ausmacht… und es wurde deutlich, dass es nicht einfach ist, abseits der großen Städte sich Kleidung und Ambiente zu leisten.
Allmählich strömten mehr und mehr Gäste in Feierlaune durch das Tor in den Historischen Laubengarten. Viele kamen zur Laube und lugten hinein, um zu sehen, wie unser Radio aussah.
Zum Abschluss blickten Helen und ich auf die Planung der künftigen Sendungen. Datscha Radio kehrt in der ersten Augustwoche in den Laubengarten zurück und wird sein Augen- und Ohrenmerk den vielfältigen (Wild)Gärten der Stadt, die Gegenwart des Gärtnerns und seiner AkteurInnen in Altenburg leihen. Das ‚Streuobstradio‘ im Frühherbst hingegen wird über neue Saaten und Formen gärtnerischen Miteinanders spekulieren. Wir freuen uns darauf!
Datscha Radio reist nach Thüringen: Am 30. Juni 2023, im Rahmen der Altenburger Museumsnacht, testen wir unser Set-up für den August und September. Wir senden live von 19 – 22 Uhr aus dem Historischen Laubengarten der Gartenkolonie Einheit e. V..
11 Grad, Wind und noch mehr Wind aus Süden, lautete die magische Wettervorhersage an diesem Tag. Wir starteten 15 Minuten vor der Zeit: Zur Freude der vorbeisegelnden Vögel mischte sich das Tonband von Lukatoyboy mit ihren Stimmen und dem Rauschen des Windes.
Weitere akustische Magie kam aus Australien in Form einer Aufzeichnung von Tuning Forks, einer “Wahrsage-Kochshow” der Klanghexen Julia Drouhin, Philippa Stafford und Biddy O’Connor.
Radiogast des Tages war die in Helsinki lebende, finnisch-tschechische Künstlerin, Aktivistin und Dichterin Roza Turunen, die in Begleitung ihrer Schriftstellerfreundin Maija Karakoski und ihrer Mutter und Kostümkünstlerin Jana Vyborna-Turunen kam. Roza stellte ihr Bewusstseinsstrom-Gedicht “Caesura of Tragedy” vor, das sich mit magischen Momenten in der alltäglichen Welt beschäftigt.
Unser anschließendes Gespräch drehte sich um Rozas Schreib- und Wahrnehmungspraktiken. Caesura of Tragedy zum Beispiel wurde in jedem Wort unverändert gelassen. Die Gedanken der Dichterin wurden direkt auf ihrem Notepad aufgezeichnet.
Das Gedicht der antidisziplinären Künstlerin Cecilie Fang Our skin as a Carrie – “Wortzeilen, die die Ökologie der Berührung verschlingen” (Fang), bot sich als ebenso schöner wie passender Abschluss von Rozas Lesung an.
Taking a small break on the path to the house, I was lucky to strike a very quick conversation with the artist Sirkku Ala-Harja about sea monsters, the theme of her two drawings put up at the gallery.
Spells for changing weather conditions are a common and worldwide spread magical practice. A Prayer for Rain, for everyone, sent to Harraka Island Radio by Sebastiane Hegarty offered “A fragment of voice from an anonymous audio cassette letter, sent from Canada to Winchester, UK and found in a second-hand shop in the late 1990s.” This was followed by GongPunk, a “sound recording of a “Gong Bath” provided by the Gong Master Gonzalo Zavalla and intervened in real-time by Franco Falistoco in 2018.”
The last conversation transmitted to the airwaves of Harakka Island was with Kari Yli-Annala, reflecting on the event’s tides of performances, lectures, movie screenings, and the exhibition in the gallery Lennätin. Altogether, more than 20 artists shared their art and knowledge. Kari said, a better-funded and more thoroughly advertised “Week of the Impossible” would of course still offer more channels to spread the interdisciplinarity of the Experimental Arts… as is his declared endeavor for 2024. Together with the visiting guests of the gallery we then listened to last day’s recording of Joonas’ lecture.
Our broadcast closed with a work by the sonic anthropologist Tom Miller, Thin Cities – an “imaginary sound-mapping of Thomas More’s fictional 16th-century island of Utopia, built around analog tapes of Italo Calvino reading from his books Invisible Cities and Mr. Palomar.“
It felt sad to leave the island, the (im)possibility of returning for more radio and more analogue magic hanging in the air like Petrichor. Yet, what became very clear again – in my talks with Kari, in the multi-felt’ processes related to radio-making and getting to know a new place with its varied fauna and flora: Radio is a medium that is reaching out… and truly affects the listeners’ being-in-the-world. I liked Harakka Radio’s humble 92 MHz frequency that shared (and re-shared) the air space with hundreds of watchful avian nesting. Important to say: everybody I spoke to, was greatly impressed, amazed, dazed (you name it) by the very existence of radio art.
Contributing radio artists of Day 4 (in loose order of appearance)
Julia Drouhin, Pip Stafford, Biddy O’Connor: Tuning Forks
Tiger Stangl: Rewind
Cecilie Fang: Our Skin as Carrier Bag
Sebastiane Hegarty: A Prayer for Rain, for everyone
Franco Fallistocu: Gong Punk
Joonas Jokiranta: Magiasta. Lecture from 27th of May
Tom Miller: Thin Cities
Last but not least remark: Some views of the island and the station’s surroundings were captured on a mechanical panorama camera :) If something’s on the film: You will see it in due time.
(Deutsche Übersetzung folgt) Saturday started with gentle winds and a changeable sky, filled as usual with the screeches of the watchful terns. Two guests were scheduled for today’s program, filmmaker and scholar Minou Norouzi and nature guide and photographer Erkki Makkonen. As the theme of the day was ‘Island Ecologies’, Sarah Washington’s “Analogue Birds”, was the first thing to play while preparing a late breakfast with strong coffee.
The day’s playlist contained – not without a reason! – Dinah Bird’s “Different Rains”, Peter Cusack’s Berlin magpie recordings, and Sebastian Pafundo’s wave song piece “Dorothy”. The Brazilian composer and radio artist Roberto D’Ugo had sent three compositions, all of them exploring analog sound/field recording (and making) and/or the imagery of the sea and liminal loop rituals. We played “M.A.R.” and “Stranger in the Nest”.
Minou Norouzi is a documentary filmmaker and critic with a focus on documentary art practice, knowledge production, and diasporic cinema language. For Harakka Radio she had prepared a text about islands which playfully approached the different connotations of the terms ‘island’, Isola, isolation… – and the sociopolitical parameters attached to them: the use of islands as prisons, or as conveniently isolated spaces for the mentally ill or the dead, for example. The audio file they brought was a piece by artist Moses Sumney, cut together with her most central statements about islands.
We also talked about her involuntarily lengthened stay on the Helsinki island Suomenlinna during her HIAP residency in 2021: The rules of the Covid pandemic required her to extend her stay from 2 months to a much longer term.
Erkki Makkonen, nature guide, and photographer, arrived around 3:30 pm. A photo was taken – on physical film material.
Maybe Erkki was the right person to ask why there no magpies could be seen on the ‘Magpie Island’, but hundreds of breeding barnacle geese and terns? Magpies reside here at a different time of the year he says, and explains, that it is only since 1990 that the barnacle goose made Harakka island its breeding place. Our talk meanders from the history of the island and the buildings on it (telegraph communications and chemical laboratory) to the educational work of the nature guides to the climatic changes evolving during the past decades. Having worked as a nature guide on the island for about 25 years already, Erkki drew on a deeper-than-usual sensing of the island’s nature. I wanted to learn more about possibly specific dealings with birds as more-than-human messengers between earth and sky. Owls, he says, would be the kind of bird that he has connected to in the past. Maybe, he says and laughs, he would even turn into one, in another life.
It is only in later research that I found out about the mystery tales about the barnacle goose which was believed to grow either from (equally black-and-white) barnacles clinging to floating timbers or, as this illustration below shows, from barnacle mussels hanging from a tree and then ripening into birds.
After the radio, we all walked over to the auditorium of the academy to witness a live painting video by Liisa Kallio, followed by a lecture about magic by the Karelian artist Joonas Jokiranta. Joonas had already started his performance, covering the blackboard with words and symbols. Luckily most of his words could be recorded as ‘impossible’ radio sorcery for Harakka Radio’s very last island broadcast, the Day of Magic!
Contributing radio artists (in loose order of appearance)
Sarah Washington: Analogue birds
Sebastian Pafundo: Dorothy
y2mate.com-Moses-Sumney-insula (Track by Minou)
Roberto d’Ugo: M.A.R.
Dinah Bird: Different Rains
Joan Schumann: Generative Engine
Peter Cusack: constant_magpies_distant_sirens_dogs&voices; very_close_magpie_sparrows
The very analogue sign for the small ferry boat to stop at the Merisataman Mattolaituri pier and take passengers to Harakka Island is a white wooden arrow that needs to be lifted and fixed (for darker circumstances a lamp can be switched on). Kari, Rori and the boat arrived at almost the same time, and the sign was lowered again.
Together with Rori the six listening stations around the gallery were quickly set up. Our broadcast started with cloudy weather and a pensive piece by the Irish artist Ian Joyce, “Wind Flute” from the series Mountain Trio Study. For this series – about nomadic song, sound, and experiences of invisibility – a set of haikus was written and translated into Finnish, the words surfacing from time to time in the compositions.
Rori had also invited a silent yet very interested guest, an amateur ham radio activist who, alas, declared he was too shy to speak on the radio. For quite some time he sat down close to the first listening station and seemingly enjoyed the show.
With our focus on the earth and geology, we instead turned to an excerpt of Kate Donovan’s ‘Elements’ show, which she had created in 2020. With the artist guests Catherine Evans and Ally Bisshop their scope of conversations reached from Polish crystal mines to the unpredictable rock landscapes in Iceland.
Guest of the day was geologist Antti Salla who arrived at 2 pm. Antti is a Senior Specialist at the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) and he is renowned for his knowledge of the rock formations in and around the city of Helsinki.
Our conversation drew on the geological features of Harakka Island, some of them bearing extraordinary witness to the movements of the earth during the ice age. And even now, as Antti stated, the island is in movement, raising each year 3-5 mm above sea level. Certainly, a very small, hardly noticeable movement, yet one that brings the immense differences in human and geological time to mind.
On being asked about his personal feelings of being-with ‘geologic entities’, he stated that indeed his work teaches him a good measure of humbleness but also, in its very ‘down to earthness’ brings happiness to him. The talk closed with a piece by Joan Schumann about “time, deceleration tactics, deep listening and the collective symbology of end-times and freedom”: Generative Engine.
While listening, the sky darkened by the minute and – after yesterday’s experience – made us decide to move the table into the anti-chambre. We were all a bit excited about the upcoming phone call to England and the prospect of a live telephone earth hum concert.
The UK radio and sound artist Jonathan Moss uses “recordings of the 50Hz harmonic interference in the earth. The harmonics are adjusted with an LFO. Frequencies about 10KHz are realised using hetrodyning, so they become audible for humans.”
During our chat, two of his pieces were played, but the main part was Jonathan improvising a saxophone tune in response to a recent hum recorded in his garden. On my asking, he says yes, indeed: The frequencies and rhythm of the soil do change according to the seasons of the year. A hum in spring is different from a hum recorded in autumn. Of course, location, co-habiting species (mushrooms, earthworms, ants…), and the weather also play into the tunes. From the UK we then turn to Ireland, with a short piano impromptu from Ian Joyce’ series Trio Mountain Studies: #5.
The last piece of the day was a composition by the sound and intermedia artist Petra Kapš (alias OR poiesis): KISETSU Quarry. Based on 10 years of revisiting and recording in the quarry of Kisetsu in the Karst region close to the Adriatic Sea. Using fragments from a sonic archive of recorded material, – field recordings, traces of performances, and poetry – she finds beautiful words to describe the credo of this piece:
The prophecy for the future is hidden in the substance – we need to listen, todwell deep inside in order to understand and to predict. Seemingly deafdarkness of the stone substance is potent with knowing.
Contributing Radio Artists in loosely remembered order of appearance
Ian Joyce: Mountain Trio Studies #5 and #2
Kate Donovan with Catherine Evans and Ally Bisshop: Elements Show Minerals and Chrystals
Joan Schuman: Generative Engine
Jonathan Moss: Human Hum Humble, Tuning into Easter Garten + Live Talk and impro via phone
(Deutsche Übersetzung folgt) Six listening stations were set up around the gallery Lennätin: Six radios adorned with feathers transmitted the studio situation to the visiting or passing guests (tourists, children’s classes, nature lovers, artists, birds, and insects).
Rori Vallinharju
Harakka Island Radio received personal support from the immensely helpful assistance of Rori Vallinharju, who took care of helping with the set-up of the station and providing everything needed during the first two radio days.
Our broadcasting range was small, due to the rocky geography of the island and the rather low elevation of the transmitter being fixed to the wall of the house. Gallery Lennätin is a small house with a gallery space, a kitchen, an anti-chamber, and a small wooden terrace on which we installed the radio station. Our frequency was 92 MHz.
Harakka Island Radio started with Peter Cusack’s recordings of magpies (Harakka means ‘Magpie’ in Finnish), that now interweaved with the constant screeches and warning hisses of the seagulls and barnacle geese that were nesting all over the island. And while I Am This Radio was playing, Kari Yli-Annala, the organizer of the event of the “Week of the Impossible” made himself comfortable at the microphone.
As the founder of the island’s Nomad Academy of Experimental Arts, into which this former telegraph building still stemming from the Russian occupation has been converted, Kari jokes that who else than artists would be able to put up with the hundreds of angry birds populating the island. Kari works in Helsinki as a filmmaker, media artist, and art teacher, yet, the “Day of the Impossible” – according to Sun Ra, the 22nd of May – forms a central theme for his activities assembling ‘impossible’ artists to join him on the island for art exhibitions, lectures, performances, and… this time, even radio.
The main building hosts more than 20 studios rented out to different artists; for the “Week’s” events, the artworks are installed at the separate Gallery Lennätin, with an ancient farmhouse building of the “Kasematte IV” serving as a performance and multi-media space.
With this year’s focus on ‘the analogue’ it was clear that pre-digital recordings would be a favourite sound resource for the radio. Tiger Stangl’s short Rewind was a good example to play… a soft, as windy as melodic tape hiss. We examined some of the tapes Kari had been given for this event and played an excerpt from Lukatoyboy’s last-minute collage for Harakka. Anna Friz’ piece Radiotelegraph featured a sending of a radiotelegraph in spoken Morse code from the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art in the small town of Seyðisfjörður on the east coast of Iceland where she had undertaken a two-month residency. In only just introducing these works the bandwidth of the radio art spectrum became evident.
The Taiwanese media artist and musician Wan Quian Lin aka Winona had arrived together with Kari already around noon. Originally based in Berlin, she too had undertaken the ‘impossible’ journey to Harakka Island. Her work, “The Whisperings of Mushrooms”, would be staged the following day at the Kasematte IV building, in cooperation with the Finnish dancer Sara Kovamäki.
We listened to an excerpt of her music, and we spoke about her fascination with the mycelium underworld. In her performances, she uses piezo and contact microphones which are intricately connected to objects in the room and to each other, creating a self-responsive web of communications.
Musically, the program of Day 1 continued with more tapes (and rewinds) by potentiometer conductor Maximillian Glass, who spun through the frequency worlds of medium wave radio (AM) and uninterrupted waves (CW).
With Rori, who is active as a socio-cultural activist and artist we talked about the theme of psychogeography: What is it that makes the aura of a place special, even maybe eerie or tense, or relaxed? While we chatted on, alarming lightnings crisscrossed the sky and thunder could be heard from afar. Then, quite suddenly, a gust of rain flooded the radio table and we decided to call it a day. The last piece played that day was Magz Hall and Peter Coyte’s collaborative piece Outside – an auditory work that maps and makes audible sea and air pollution. A piece too, that brought us back to our location on an island that, just a stone’s throw from the city, is all the more vulnerable to all man-made environmental threats.
Kari Yli-Annala
Day 1Radio Artists in loosely remembered order of appearance
Peter Cusack: Berlin Magpies
Gabi Schaffner: I Am This Radio
Tiger Stangl: Rewind
Lukatoyboy: Tape4Harakka
Anna Friz: Radio Telegraph
Maximillian Glass: The Conductor at the Potentiometer
