Open Call
The Magic of the Analogue: ‘Magpie’ Radio on Harakka Island

Celebrating the Magic of the Analogue, Harakka Radio invites you to contribute and shape a live radio program on the occasion of the Week of the Impossible, organized by the Nomadic Academy of Experimental Art, Helsinki, Finland.

For a whole week from the 22^nd on, Finnish media artist and performer Kari Yli-Annala invites the world to join the artistic activities at Nomad Academy on Harakka Island. This year’s theme is “The Magic and the Analogue” – and what can be more magic and analogue than a W-Lan-free radio station on an island?

Harakka Radio is an off-shoot of the nomadic and ecologic radio art project Datscha Radio, and is maintained by Gabi Schaffner. We will broadcast for 4 days between the 25 and 28 of May on Harakka Island, reviving the tradition of micro-broadcasting. Each day for 3-4 hours, we will probe into the psychogeography of the island. The live broadcasts will present talks and readings, concerts, and experimental music.

We are curious about:

• Local knowledge about the fauna & flora, the ecology and the history of Harakka Island
• Poetry/conversations relating to rocks, stones, islands, birds, sea, air, radio
• Magnetic tape recordings and your experimental tape music
• Non-digitally produced/recorded sound art
• Morse music, Magpies
• Time: Deceleration tactics, deep listening
• When interested to perform live, please send 100 words about your idea J
• You must own the (copy)rights of your production!

Deadline and Formats

Deadline is May, 20^th. Please:

• Please send your magic radio contribution as mp3 ONLY (preferably 320 mbits)
• label your tracks: firstname_lastname_title
• include a pdf with <100 words about your piece (how it relates to the theme) and your person
• put Harakka Radio as the subject line
• send the link to info@datscharadio.de via wetransfer et al

How to listen

The station’s range of FM radio waves will cover the island… and only the island.

In order to listen visitors must take the ferry and bring a radio with them (yes, one of those boxes with an antenna and a scale pointer­). Harakka Radio will be situated at Gallery Lennätin.

We are fond of an open studio situation: performers, spontaneous live guests and visitors are welcome.

Sustainability

You are heartily invited to take out your old cassette recorders and analogue cameras from their closets and experiment with analogue documentation. We would love it, and include the results on the Datscha Radio site.

Fees
Harakka Radio works on a non-commercial basis, therefore we cannot reimburse you for your valuable time and work. What we have to offer is a radio station and art platform for discovery, exchange and networking. In the off-line world. Nähdään pian!

All copyrights stay with the artists. For more information about the project, please see datscharadio.de

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Harakka Island Radio

Harakka Island Radio

In case you didn’t know, 22 May is ‘Impossible Day’.
Day of the Impossible’. Finnish media artist and founder of the ‘nomadic academy of experimental art’, Kari Yli-Annala, invites you to artistic activities on the island of Harakka off Helsinki for a week from 22 May. This year’s theme is “The Magic of the Analogue”.

Datscha Radio is pleased to announce its sudden and surprising ‘mission impossible’ for 25-28 May 2023 in the guise of an experimental micro-FM station, Harakka Radio.

Together with the islanders, artists and guests, and under the roof of a former telegraph station, Harakka Radio will create a 3-hour live radio programme on FM for four days. Detailed information on this will be published in the next posts.

The Island

The island of Harakka (=”magpie”) is a 30-minute ferry ride from the centre of Helsinki, a predominantly flat and rocky plate of basalt and mica gneiss, criss-crossed with shimmering veins of a wide variety of minerals: magnetite, hornblende and the tourmaline-like, yellow-green epidote. The island of Harakka does not stand still: it continues to rise above sea level at a rate of 3-4 mm (30-40 cm per century). It is uninhabited today, but houses a nature conservation and education centre as well as various buildings and barracks from the time of the Russian occupation. The main venue for the event, the Nomad Academy, used to be the telecommunications centre. Unfortunately, nothing remains of the technical facilities today.

The Radio

The radio is set up in a former telegraph station with a kitchen.

Harakka Radio will only be listenable on the island and only via short wave (FM) radio. The live program focusing on the psychogeography and ecologies of the island will therefore take place partly in secret; visitors are asked to bring their own receivers.

Inter/national and Helsinki-based sound, tape and radio artists: You are cordially invited to present your works to the island audience.

Curious about:

• Magnetic tape recordings and experimental tape music
• Non-digitally produced/recorded sound art
• Decelerations
• If you are interested in performing live, send 100 words info to info@datscharadio.de

The deadline for submissions is 20 May. Detailed information is described in the Open Call.

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