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Harakka Island

Eine Radiostation für die “Elster-Insel” vor Helsinki, Finnland.

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.

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(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 1 Radio 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
  • Magz Hall and Peter Coyte: Don’t Listen Up

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There are connections between the magic and the analog that maybe need not be spelled out. Who does not know the occurrence of the ghostly presence of an unknown voice in a room? Or, the aura of a geographically remote place unfolding in your very living room. There are other and less evident concepts of magic (which is – strangely – an extremely rational and analogue pursuit) in our world that we would like to examine further… yet, this would mean to overfreight for this very spontaneously conceived insular event.

For the four days from the 25-28 of May, we have put together a program that can be roughly divided into four theme days:
1 Radio waves, Rain and Tapes. With Kari Yli-Annala
2 Grounding the Ear: Listening to the earth’ hum, talks about geology and the mysteries of minerals. Live Phone call with Jonathan Moss, UK
3 Analogue Birds and Plants. Island life. Guest: Erkki Makkonen
4 Word Magic: Poetry, Radioplays, Encantations. Guest: Róza Turunen. Open Studio.

Harakka Radio is prone to faults and flows, broadcasting on a narrow range that covers the island… just so. it may disrupt our habits of listening while at the same time opening up new ways to perceive. The program includes sonic artworks by more than 20 international sound and radio artists. that at times might be hard to distinguish from the wind and waves combing the leaves of trees and grass on the island.

The program will run from 1 or 2 – 5 pm, with the station situated at the Lännatin Gallery. The studio is open to visiting guests. Analog documentation in photography and writing is welcome.

Harakka Radio is also about listening culture on a social scale, people can come together to listen, a somewhat long-forgotten tradition of being and sharing together.
Prepare for the unexpected, maybe even the impossible! Harakka Radio and the Nomad Academy of Experimental Arts wish you a magic stay on the island.

Please bring your radio and tune to 92 MHz fm ! Or come and sit by one of the four listening stations we have etablished!

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(Übersetzung ins Deutsche entfällt) Dear contributing Open Call Artists,
dear Radio Enthusiasts, Analogue Islanders and Visitors!


As always, I am surprised, touched, and at times quite overwhelmed by the bandwidth, and beauty of your contributions. This time even more, because (probably) none of you living far away from Finland can really listen to them… they are broadcast exclusively via FM on the small island of Harakka, which is a short boat ride away from the pier in Helsinki.

At this point in time, the list of participating sound and radio artists reads like this:

  • Anna Friz
  • Cecilie Fang
  • Franco Falistoco
  • Ian Joyce
  • Joan Schuman
  • Jonathan Moss
  • Julia Drouhin – with Pip Stafford and Biddy_Connor
  • Kate Donovan – with Catherine Evans, Ally Bisshop)
  • Lukatoyboy
  • Magz Hall – with Peter Coyte
  • Maximillian Glass
  • Franco Falistoco
  • Petra Kapš aka OR poiesis
  • Roberto D’Ugo
  • Sarah Washington
  • Sebastian Pafundo
  • Sebastiane Hegarty
  • Tiger Stangl
  • Tom Miller

Due information about the pieces played and on which days will be given (latest) by Thursday morning. Harakka Radio is welcoming local artists and scientists to its program, as invited by the event’s organizer, artist and founder of the Nomad Academy of Experimental Art, Kari Yli-Annala:

Antti Salla, geologist. Day 2, 2 pm
Erkki Makkonen, plant specialist Day 3
Róza Turunen, poet. Day 4, 3 pm
Minou Norouzi, film maker. Day 3

The dates and times given are subject to changes! Additional guests are expected!

As the final schedule is not yet decided on, new info will also be shared a bit later on. Our frequency is 92.0 MHz. The program starts each day at 2 pm and ends at 5 pm… unless decided otherwise.  Broadcast assistant is Rori Vallinharju.

For all of you who want to visit the Island, this is the schedule for the ferry:

https://www.merenkavijat.fi/yhteysveneen-aikataulut.html

Please bring your radio! There are some specimens on the island to listen to/borrow but isn’t it much nicer to walk around and catch the radio waves by your own device?

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Harakka Island Radio

Für den Fall, dass es Euch nicht bekannt war: Der 22. Mai ist der
‘Tag des Unmöglichen’. Der finnische Medienkünstler und Gründer der ‘nomadischen Akademie der experimentellen Kunst’, Kari Yli-Annala, lädt ab dem 22. Mai für eine Woche zu künstlerischen Aktivitäten auf die Insel Harakka vor Helsinki ein. Das diesjährige Thema lautet “The Magic of the Analogue”.

Datscha Radio freut sich, in Gestalt einer experimentellen Mikro-UKW-Station seine plötzliche und überraschende ‘mission impossible’ für den 25. bis 28. Mai 2023 anzukündigen!

Gemeinsam mit den Inselbewohner*innen, Künstler*innen und Gästen und unter dem Dach einer einstigen Telegrafenstation wird Harakka Radio ein 3-stündiges Live-Radio-Programm auf UKW für vier Tage gestalten. Detaillierte Infos hierzu im Laufe der nächsten Posts.

Die Insel

Die Insel Harakka (=“Elster“) liegt eine 30-minütige Fährfahrt vom Zentrum Helsinkis entfernt, eine überwiegend flache und felsige Platte aus Basalt und Glimmergneis, durchzogen von schimmernden Adern verschiedenster Mineralien: Magnetit, Hornblende und der turmalinähnliche, gelbgrüne Epidot. Die Insel Harakka steht nicht still: Mit einer Geschwindigkeit von 3-4 mm (30-40 cm pro Jahrhundert) hebt sie sich weiter über den Meeresspiegel. Sie ist heute unbewohnt, beherbergt aber ein Naturschutz- und Bildungszentrum sowie verschiedene Gebäude und Kasernen aus der Zeit der russischen Besatzung.  Der Hauptveranstaltungsort des Events, die Nomadenakademie, war früher das Telekommunikationszentrum. Leider ist von den technischen Einrichtungen heute nichts mehr erhalten.

Das Radio

Das Radio wird eingerichtet in einer ehemaligen Telegrafenstation in Küchennähe.

Harakka Radio wird nur auf der Insel und nur auf UKW zu empfangen sein. Das Liveprogramm mit Focus auf die Psychogeografie des Eilands wird sich also teils im Verborgenen abspielen; die Besucher*Innen werden gebeten, eigene Empfangsgeräte mitzubringen.

Internationale Klang-, Tonband- und Radiokünstler*innen: Ihr seid herzlichst eingeladen, Eure Werke dem Inselpublikum vorzustellen.

Wir sind neugierig auf:

  • Magnetbandaufnahmen und experimentelle Tonbandmusik
  • Nicht-digital produzierte/aufgezeichnete Klangkunst
  • Entschleunigungen
  • Wenn Ihr interessiert seid live aufzutreten, sendet 100 Wörter Info an info@datscharadio.de

Einsendeschluss ist der 20. Mai. Detaillierte Informationen sind im Open Call beschrieben.

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