This upcoming Wednesday, Datscha Radio will focus on issues of field recording, farming and life in the village. The sound mapping artist Wu Tsan Cheng will be my studio guest and will present a selection of some of his finest field recordings.
Wu Tsan-Cheng
A trip to Yilan sprouted a talk and/or audio walk with the performance artist and gardener Yang Hauyu. And we will explore life in the village a bit further, featuring fruit wine recipes and a guided walk introducing some of the historical trees in Treasure Hill. Last but certainly one of the highlights will be a talk with the villages’s oldest inhabitant, Mr. Hu – first photo above – , who is also a passionate singer. Translations by Catherine Lee, director of Treasure Hill Village. And we’ll close the show with a vocal bouquet of Karaoke songs, recorded on the 26th of January.
Time: 3 pm (Taipei time); 8am (Berlin time) Date: 30th of Janurary Location: Treasure Hill Artist Village, Studio 4-4
All of this is still in the making, so changes in the schedule might occur.
The day started with an expedition into the audio equipment world of Taipei: A broadcast-compatible second microphone was missing. To cut a long story short: Hero of my day was a young man called Wu Weida who led me from one Hi-Fi shop to another and finally to a stand in a market hall where I happily acquired the item.
Here come come pictures from our broadcast. The day was overcast and slightly fresh, therefore I decided not to move onto the terrace but stay inside my living room. Radios were tucked to nearby trees and marquees, and the scent of the freshly bought tuberoses wafted through the air.
A teacher came too with her class
Mabel Wang’s and Eli Liang’s musical inserts were a highlight. Both are trained musicians and the pieces they played belonged to the lore of traditional Taiwanese music. I still feel honored.
Mabel Wang at the Guzheng.Eli Liang grew up in a family of flute players
THAV’s managing officer Charlotte explained in her talk how the village of Treasure Hill evolved. The artist village has hosted more than 500 artists since 2002. Meanwhile different people flock in and out of the studio: THAV’s new interns and artist’s friends mostly.
Charlotte Ming Chung and IThe stream works, says Gabriele de Seta
The Italian ethnographer and artist Gabriele came with Ping, a puppeteer. She brought a youtube list of Taiwanese flower songs, some from the early 40ies, some more like 80ies. The flower in the culture here is always always a symbol for the female… many songs speak of flowers “in the rain”, “at night”, falling petals, or the other way around, of coming to bloom.
Ping and her sister during the set
Ping’s DJ-set was followed by another concert by Mabel and Eli, and the recording of an interview with the Thai poet Rewat Panpipat who lives next door and is the only other artist resident from abroad in this village. All the time I was glad to find that our little radios outside picked up perfectly the transmitter signals. And evidently also the streaming radio worked :) The broadcast closed with the give-away of the “radio carrots” to the artists and a sip (or two) of fine whiskey. Which makes me think of the fruit wines being manufactured by Cassandra, one of the local artists next door. But that’s already for the next broadcast.
For the next seven weeks, Datscha Radio will plant its ‘radio day’ each on a different week day, progressing from its first broadcast on Tuesday, the 22nd of January. The location will be my terrace in the Artist Village of Treasure Hill, Taipei, Artist Studio No. 4.
I am happy to say that I have the great luck to collaborate here with the Italian ethnographer and experimental sound (and radio) artist Gabriele de Seta. Apart from assisting with tech and sound, he will also help with translations as he is a fluent speaker of Mandarin.
We’ll broadcast on stream via datscharadio.de, but also locally via micro-FM transmitters. This means that you can bring your radio, maybe find a place in the vicinity, sit down, listen and relax. The frequency is not yet decided upon, you’ll find it published in due time on this blog and social media.
Our forecast for the 22nd of January Live concerts: Mabel Wang (Guzheng – Chinese zither) and Ely Liang (Dizi – Bamboo Flute) Talks: Charlotte Ming Chun, Catherine Lee (THAV and TAV representatives) Field recordings: raw audio Selected interviews: Audio walk through the Village led by Lily Liu Rewat Panpipat (Poet); Orachacorn (Editor)
Gardening is not about keeping schedules and plants don’t grow by the clock. Rather they follow their inner rhythms, they react to weather conditions, they communicate with fellow plants, living beings and matter in their environment. Gardening is most of all about caring and spending time with your surroundings. This newly planted radio garden in Treasure Hill invites you to come, listen, to contemplate, share and participate.
As we want to make this place as beautiful and flowering as possible, you may donate unwanted pot plants, flowers and/or vegetables :)
Yesterday I received great help for our jingle, – and the writing in the picture, „Hua yuan dian tai“, means „garden radio“.
I owe my thanks here to Yi-Chun Liu/Lily, Mabel Wang, Ming-Chun Cheng/Charlotte and Alice who lent their voices to the recording. And to Catherine Lee, director of the AIR program Treasure Hill Village, for her enthusiastic support. Catherine also explained that the word „datscha“ sounds very much like „Let’s go“ in Chinese. We also recorded an extra male voice for the jingle, the one of Yi-Wei Tsai, presenting Datscha Radio Taipei with an awe-inspiring laugh…
Catherine Lee. It’ grape harvesting time in Taiwan now.
Taipei’s flower market is located under the protective rain shield of a flyover about 100 meters from Daan Park. It’s Sunday, but the hall is not too crowded. White arrows on the ground direct the flow of the masses into the right direction. So, first look at everything to the right, and on your way back onthe left. Hasty lane-changing leads to a little confusion, but is possible. Almost everything is here to discover : Water-steam machines, fertilizers, garden tools, soil, aquarium supplies, young dogs (in pink cages), seeds, pots and vessels of all kinds and of course flowers and plants for house and garden, mainly the latter.
One thing that strikes me, is the relative silence in comparison to the London flower market: no barkers, no screaming, not even with the countless special offers for orchids. I am glad that I am not an orchid specialist, otherwise I would have shed tears of delight. There are exquisite selections of „lady’s slippers“, young plants of special varieties, cascading flower stems in light yellow and aubergine, darkly speckled pharynxes, mysterious root pieces and lots of smaller „home plants” from 50 TWD (ca.1, 60 Euro). The prices for more splendid specimens go from 200 to 450 TWD and I feel very tempted.
Roughly speaking, the flower market can be divided into the sections orchids, succulents, ferns and epiphyts, camellias and bonsai (they really don’t belong together, but they are often grouped together), plants for the herb and vegetable garden and “showy perennials“, among them above all asters, pericallis and tailflowers as well as snap dragon, some roses and delphiniums. The stalls offering western spring flowers attract evidently delighted woman customers: There are hyacinths in full bloom and bulbs of daffodils. All of these are comparatively expensive. Taipei flower lovers also seem to share an obvious liking for decorative Chichi, especially in aquaristics…
Coming to seeds, I search for Asian flowers, but there’s nothing there. Maybe because everything grows here almost by itself? The assortment – apart from garden vegetables – is almost the same as in Western stores, although a bit more limited: sunflowers, cosmea, Sweet William, autumn asters.
Garden tools are a story for themselves. To my astonishment, Western product names are abundant. Yet, much more interesting are the super-stable steel rakes, garden knives and shovels, which lie heavy in my hand and unfortunately would increase the weight of my suitcase considerably.
Tea is also sold: First, by the cup, being filled from huge steel vessels, secondly also in packages. Happy, I cram 300 grams of Oolong into my bag.
In the middle part of the hall, young dogs (and cats) are sitting in cages and I feel sorry for them. The seller tries to pull one of them out for a potential customer by grabbling its paw, and it seems to me that the animal here is viewed just as a living object.
In general, the dogs being walked here in the streets are often adorned with extravagant hairstyles and/or clothes. Being a dog groomer seems to be a profitable profession in Taipei. Also, it is not uncommon to transport dogs in buggies, for whatever reason..
(Translation follows) Treasure Hill Artist Village im Zhongzheng Distrikt Taipehs liegt nahe am Fluss, über dem ein Wirrwarr an Flyovers und Zufahrten die Lüfte kreuzt. Dahinter: grüne, in Wolkendunst gehüllte Berge. Auf dem Weg zum Ufer liegen die Gemüsegärten der Dorfbewohner: Etwa 19 Familien teilen sich das Viertel von Treasure Hill mit heimischen und auswärtigen KünstlerInnen.
Während die Einheimischen vorwiegend ihre Nutzgärten pflegen, ist die gesamte Anlage nicht weniger auch geprägt von „Picknickorten“, Wandelgängen und einer Vielzahl versteckter Mikrogärten. Was von den alten Fliesen geblieben ist, mit denen Plätze, Betonwände und Terrassen gekachelt sind, zeigt meist Blumenmotive. Die Dächer begrünen sich von allein…, aber einige Dachgärten wurden doch mit Absicht angelegt. Mauern und Wände sind bewachsen mit Farnen, Winden, Moosen und kleinen Steinbrechgewächsen. In Töpfen stehen Zitronen- und Mandarinenbäume, Hortensien, Wandelröschen, Azaleen und Kamelien. Kohlweißlinge sind unterwegs, weshalb die meisten Kohlköpfe sorgsam unter Fließ gehalten werden. Ein Teich, eine Seerose und viele Mücken auf einem Pfad, der bereits hinter das Dorf führt, in einen weitaus ungeordneteren Garten unterhalb der historischen Fassaden der Bunker. Dort finde ich auch ein Exemplar der indigoblau blühenden „Schmetterlingserbse“. Eine Pflanze, deren Name, Clitoria ternatea, quasi selbsterklärend wäre, wenn es sich hier nicht um eine gefüllte Variante handelte.
Eating the blossoms of this plant is said to increase intelligence and beauty…
Nun ein paar Treasure Hill Gartenansichten:
(Translation follows) Treasure Hill Artist Village im Zhongzheng Distrikt Taipehs liegt nahe am Fluss, über dem ein Wirrwarr an Flyovers und Zufahrten die Lüfte kreuzt. Dahinter: grüne, in Wolkendunst gehüllte Berge. Auf dem Weg zum Ufer liegen die Gemüsegärten der Dorfbewohner: Etwa 19 Familien teilen sich das Viertel von Treasure Hill mit heimischen und auswärtigen KünstlerInnen.
Field recordists & composers, morning larks and moles, sound spies and spellers: The Garden is Calling!
Datscha Radio Taipei calls
out for local contributors and participants: Nomadic (Garden) Radio – A Quest
in Six Movements. 20th Jan – 10th of March 2019.
Datscha Radio will relocate
for six weeks to Taipei and is looking for local sound gardeners and radio
artists to perform and/or create soundscapes, talks and radio shows on site.
Datscha Radio takes ‚the garden’ as a matrix and metaphor for sharing, organic
growth and the dissemination of knowledge.
Bring your plants and
musical contemplations, come and visit at the top of Treasure Hill and support
your local radio garden in Taipei!
Datscha Radio Taipei will
broadcast once a week from a garden in Treasure Hill between the 20th
of January and the 10th of March. Duration: 2-4 hours – depending on
your responses …
What we are looking for
– garden/plant/environmental
related compositions and songs
– local musicians and singers
– active gardeners, improvisers and researchers
How can I participate?
Please send your
suggestions, ideas and/or files to: opencall@datscharadio.de
from 5th of January to the 10st of March.
You’ll find further
information about the project on datscharadio.de. You’ll find there also the
latest updates on Datscha Radios Taipei adventures and, of course, the current
dates and times of the envisaged
broadcasts.
Formats
– Live presentation and/or
talk
– Sound files (mp3 192)
Datscha Radio is a temporary
radio station and a garden and radio art project by Gabi Schaffner, Berlin. Datscha Radio Taipei is supported by the
Treasure Hill Artist Village and the Goethe Institut Taipei.
Dear radiophiles and friends! Datscha Radio wishes you health and happiness, ongoing inspiration, smooth transmissions and generally good luck for everything in 2019.
As early as the 11th of January the „station“ will move to Taiwan where it will hopefully broadcast once a week live from a garden at the Treasure Hill Artist Village in Taipei. I’ll keep you updated.
Surely this won’t be the only garden broadcast in 2019… seeds and bulbs are already planted!
