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Open Call Datscha Radio: Listening to the Universe – Radiophonien des Alls

Call 1: Audio Works
Call 2: Telegram to the Stars
(Contact phone number published: 8th August on this website)

About
Every year, from the 17th of July to the 24th of August the nightskies of the Western hemisphere are graced with the meteor showers of the Perseides. Datscha Radio takes this astronomic spectacle as a point of departure for a 48 hour live radio art festival.

Datscha Radio’s 2020 event “Listening to the Universe” explores radiophonic, musical and theme-based phenomena caused by the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.  When the earth crosses the orbit of the comet, each year around the 12th of August, comet particles enter the earth’s atmosphere at high speed and light up as meteors.

From cosmogonic storytelling to the signals of meteor detectors, from starlight inspired violin improvisations to fancy horoscopes, Datscha Radio hopes to trace the matter of, in between and around the fallings stars. 

We will broadcast online on datscharadio.de, via micro FM in the garden and – for the greatest part – on FM on 88.4 in Berlin and 90.7 in Potsdam.

The Perseides are Calling!

With “Listening to the Universe – Radiophonien des Alls Datscha Radio wants explore transpositions of the universe into sound.

From the setting of the moon on the 11th of August at 2:04 pm until 2pm sharp on the 13th of August 2020, we will be broadcasting directly from a Berlin allotment garden in the North of Berlin. 

What are the sounds that tickle our awareness into new states of being and perception? How can we shift from Western-based knowledge culture to a diversified multiverse?
Datscha Radio wants to find out – and needs your radiophonic input and messages.

Call 1: Listening to the Universe

How can we “reflect” the universe? What is the sound of stars falling, the chirping of matter, the rumble of transformation? How can we tune in to particular matter? What are the intricacies of sky media (bodies, thoughts, transmissions, that navigate and move through the space above)? How can we create visionary stories that embody alternative futures. Let us travel to distant planets, subterranean galaxies, visionary politics of the mind and body.

Let us broadcast your ‘radiating’ compositions and sonic musings together under the falling stars of the Datscha garden. Datscha Radio asks you to focus on visions of the universe and their possible metamorphoses into sound, language and music: slow time, music of the spheres, non-human communications, poetry, dark and light matter, alternative storytelling… you name it.

  • Please send your files via wetransfer toinfo@datscharadio.de.
  • Please provide two or three lines (400 spaces max) each about the piece and its relevance for the theme, and yourself, including a website if desired. 
  • Label your tracks as: name_surname_title
  • Add a line as to whether you agree with having your broadcast work archived with Datscha Radio’s online documentation. 
  • Please put “Listening to the Universe” as a subject line.
  • Deadline: Call 1: Please submit your audio piece by the 8th of August 2020.

Call 2: Telegram to the Stars

Have you got your wishes ready for the falling stars? We’ll help them travel the aether and further and further…
Datscha Radio hopes to gather a continuous assemblage of your audio or text messages to the stars that will be played or read out over the course of our 48 hour transmission. The universe will listen, be assured!

Deadlines

Call 1: Please submit your audio piece until the 8th of August 2020.

Call 2: Please send your wishes, poems, dream-states and messages in audio or text to the Datscha Radio line, which will be made public on the website from the 8th of August. You may send ahead and during the festival but no later than the 13th of August, 1pm.

Schedule

Our Datscha Radio program will grow with the flow of the events. There is no fixed time schedule. You’ll find a list of all participating artists on our website in due time.

Datscha Radio can be heard on

  • datscharadio.de
  • on colaboradio.org
  • in collaboration with other radio stations and projects (if interested, please, let us know)

What can Datscha Radio offer?
Datscha Radio works on a voluntary basis. Therefore, unfortunately we can neither pay for any costs, nor distribute any production fees. 

What we have to offer is:

  • a platform and experimental site for acoustic super novae
  • the broadcast of your contributions locally, via stream and on FM
  • lasting sustainability: the documentation of “Listening to the Universe” will be archived, for you to enjoy and share.

Copyrights

Datscha Radio is a non-commercial art and culture project. The copyright for submitted files remains with the artists. The legal model that we are using is the Creative Commons License (see http://creativecommons.org/learn/licenses).

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Datscha Radio Taiwan on tesla.fm
Chenchi

On Tuesday, 23rd of June, one hour of Datscha Radio Taipei will be broadcast. The excerpt is taken from DRT #4, Species and Environment, originally produced on the 23rd of February 2019.
Playing at: 12-1pm; as well as at 3-4pm and 8-9pm
At: https://teslafm.net/

We’ll be listening to Margaret Shiu of Bamboo Curtain Studio and Huang Chen-Chi, who is playing the erhu, a traditional Chinese violin.
Produced by Gabi Schaffner.

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Datscha Radio can happily announce that funding is secured for its radiophonic stargazing event “In Between… The Stars”, on occasion of the Perseides’ falling stars in mid-August 2020. The project will be supported by the Amt for Weiterbildung und Kultur, Berlin-Pankow, and the Hans and Charlotte Krull foundation.

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Datscha Radio on Air. Photo: ©Gabi Schaffner

How does making radio in the garden sound like? Between bugs and beetle bread, under the spell of the moon, in the small hours of the morning. How can the garden and its ecologies resound in radio?
These questions lay at the core of my archival and radiophonic investigations of what “makes” Datscha Radio special. On commission of Kunstradio Vienna a 51 minute sound collage was put together, to be broadcast on


Sneak Preview HERE

Includes excerpts of Datscha Radio 2017 and the Nightgardening series 2019 plus additional material. Datscha Radio Berlin is realized with Kate Donovan, Helen Thein and Niki Matita.

Full Credit List, artists in order of appearance:

Intros Datscha Radio aus 2017 und 2019

Sarah Washington: Analogue Birds, Datscha Radio 2014 (Backdrop)

Hidden Stories Singers (Dafne Della Dafne, Rosanna Lovell, Zara Verity Morris, Shanti Suki Osman, Mary Beth Volker): Let Us All Speak Our Minds by Elizabeth Knight

Martha Zapparoli: Improvisation – inaudible sound project 

Silky Toss & Pete de Ville: Sugar Bee, von Eddy Schuler

Frieder Butzmann. Twitter Twitter Tirili.

Seamus O’Donnell und Mi Ho: Freshly Squeezed Juice (Backdrop)

Presentation: Niki Matita
Datscha Abendchor mit Seamus O’Donnell, Mi Ho, Rosanna Lovell, Hans Kellett, Mat Pogo, Zelda Panda

Presentation Niki Matita (mit JD Zazie)
Marek Brandt: Musik für Nacktschnecken

Presentation Kate Donovan, Gabi Schaffner
Hans Kellett: Gardening with Perennials for Winter Interest
Hannes Wienert: Horchfelder 

Datscha Radio Madrid Jingle with KTA Martin, Eva Kurly, Alberto Garcia and Romi Casile

Niina Lehtonen-Braun: Pikku Lintu

Tech Check. Donovan, Schaffner, Thein

Niina Lehtonen-Braun: Iltakahvit

Kat Austen: The Beetles’ Harvest Supper

Helen Thein und Christy Spackman: The Scent of Water

Hans Kellett: Polar Star. From the series „10 (S)Cent Poems“ by Gabi Schaffner

Niki Matita and Walter Schulze: Secret-en-plein-aire 

Moderation: Niki Matita
Lukatoyboy: 7“ Bird Vinyls (Backdrop)

Mimi Coertse: The Nightingale and the Rose, 1932. Von Camille Saint-Saens. 

Nightingale. Live Stream Nightgardening

Jari Koho: Piano / FM Radio / Loop(Backdrop)

Helena Otto: Moon & Beetroot from the Performance „To the Belly and Back“ mit Jasmina Al-Qaisi

Niki Matita and Walter Schulze: Secret-en-plein-aire (Backdrop)

Ela Spalding: Reading from „The Anthropocene“ by Christian Schwägerl

Kate Donovan: Gratitude Ritual 

Ana Berkenhoff: Beast Jetzt (Tiny Sample)

Ela Spalding: Sundown

Marold Langer-Philippsen: Maschkera (The Night Garden)

Peggy Sylopp with Gabi Schaffner: Dawn walk

Jingle 

Sarah Washington: Datscha Owl, Datscha Radio 2012

Assortment, editing and additional sounds: Gabi Schaffner, 2020

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Nightcall Radio by Kate Donovan: On magnetism and the unheard, unsung, of the night.
A live stream of a microFM transmission from a garden in Berlin. Starting at 21:15 CET, when the night officially begins, Nightcall Radio wonders which signals are sent at night – in the radio, in the garden – and which are also received.

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This spring is different. It’s a good thing there’s radio! We’ve put together some special radiophonic seeds for you and will send them to you on air in the near future. Miraculously, there are various “seed distribution resources” that will support their dispersal.

New broadcasting studio in Berlin
On March 31st, the new FRBB studio will open in Haus der Statistik on Alexanderplatz in Berlin. From 3 – 10 p.m. there will be contributions by Colaboradio, frrapò – freies radio potsdam, Ohrfunk.de, Ohrsicht, onda, Pi Radio – Sender Berlin 88,4 MHz, Radio aporee, Freies Bürgerradio Slubfurt, Radio PAX, Radio Woltersdorf, Studio Ansage…. and to be heard from Datscha Radio.

“Datscha Radio in a Nutshell” is the title of the 10-minute sound collage that Niki Matita will present as part of her contribution. (Listen here at the sidebar on the right – credits at the end of this post). We are happy to participate and congratulatefr-bb.org on the new studio!

Matters of Transmission at Soundcamp, London
Kate Donovan’s contribution to the Soundcamp Festival in London is expected to be streamed between May 2nd and 3rd. “Matters of Transmission: Nightfall Radio” will begin at sunset and relates directly to Kate’s radiophonic research: natural radio, magnetite, memory, migration, multi-species communications, trans-scalar issues…
SoundCamp is an art collective in the Stave Hill Ecological Park in Rotherhithe that has existed since 2013. Their practice continues to evolve in response to its location through residencies, collaborations and commissions.

Vienna has also discovered the “garden on the radio” for itself. As part of this theme park, Kunstradio will seemingly broadcast a 50-minute soundcollage about Datscha Radio on May 20. Produced by Elisabeth Zimmermann and Gabi Schaffner.

Datscha Radio in a Nutshell – Credits
Composition and editing: Gabi Schaffner 2020. Length: 10 min
Excerpts taken from:
Jingles, rehearsals and mixes: 2012, 2014 Michaela Schimun, Ulrike Stoehring, “Datscha Owl” by Sarah Washington 2012; Nightgardening III: Gabi Schaffner, Niki Matita; Datscha Radio Taiwan, 2019: Catherine Lee, Yi-Chun Liu, Mabel Wang and Ming-Chun Cheng; Datscha Radio Madrid, 2018: KTA Martin, Romi Casile, Alberto Garcia. Eva Kurly.
Radio art pieces (in order of appearance): Babosa, Niki Matita 2019; Seeds, Kate Donovan (with Scout, Molly and Hunter from their garden) 2019; Greenhouse Emissions, Kate Donovan and Ryan McFadyen 2017, Gymnospermium Pills, Gabi Schaffner, 2019, voice: Kate Donovan
Surprise insert: The Giant Hummingbird. Frieder Butzmann at Datscha Radio 2017
Choir: The Nightingale by Thomas Wheeler, sung by the Berlin choir Singlust e.V. under the direction and by courtesy of Andrea Eckhard. Datscha Radio Nightgardening I, “The Night of the Nightingales” 2019
Musicians involved: Hannes Wienert, Mimosa Pale, FX Schroeder
Additional sound bites: Gabi Schaffner


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What is a ritual, what is a ceremony? Does the garden have its own secret rituals that go by unobserved, that are beyond the capabilities of human sensory perception? And what about the energies that are constantly being used up in pursuits of work and play: Do we ever express our thanks to them?

Datscha Radio’s third iteration of NightGardening began with a lullaby by the artist Ela Spalding. Instead of singing or using words, Ela’s lullabies are softly hummed, minimalistic tunes in which the pauses are as important as the fragmented melodies. Ela Spalding is a member of the transdisciplinary group Archipel e.V, and although she was not present for the first moments of the broadcast, she had sent a selection of her “Sundown songs”. And so, from then on, our programme was interspersed with strangely soothing nonverbal sequences, which kept bridging the states of being awake, asleep, and dreaming… just as they bridged the transitions of our programme, traveling from sunset through to the depths of this autumn night.

14 hours of radio on cue

As for the weather, by the way, we were extremely lucky: Before sunset there was sun, and the temperatures stayed surprisingly mild. Also, plenty of food had been prepared by the painter Mathias Deutsch, who had tended the kitchen from the afternoon on.

Mr Deutsch being asked about the menu.

Our opening introduction was followed by a bit of sage magic: Niki Matita, still suffering from a bad cold, had to stay at home. The burning of a twig of sage, accompanied by an ancient cough spell helped, or so it was hoped by the radio team Kate Donovan, Helen Thein and Gabi Schaffner. Meanwhile the fire bin, thoroughly fed with some dead branches from the cherry tree, spat fire and sparks under the darkening sky.

Be it either because of or despite the omnipresence of magical thinking in our everyday lives, it becomes increasingly difficult to create new meaningful rituals, or, to view them from a non-human perspective. Kate Donovan’s ritual of gratitude for the energies necessary for many human endeavours made its point there, just as Helen Thein’s questions about the possible ritualistic behaviours among the plants of the garden did.

Ritual of Gratitude

Datscha Radio’s open call had sprouted a very fine selection of compositions by international artists, and we began with an excerpt of Julia Drouhin’s sound performance “Entretiens avec mes interieurs” (later on played in full) and Koho Jaripekka’s “Piano/FM Radio/Loop”.

Brane Zorman, Radio Cona

Then the artist and curator Brane Zorman stepped into the garden. He told us about his current compositional research for the Slovene Arts & Culture Residency in Berlin, and his work with Radio Cona in Ljubljana. Meanwhile, the “Blue Flower of Death“ resided on the table between us and awaited its turn to be introduced to our listening audience, and to Brane, who was eventually allowed to touch the plant with a rubber glove on.

This flower holds dark and deadly secrets

Aconitum napellus (here in the late-blooming form of the carmichaelii variant) is probably the most poisonous plant in Middle Europe. According to the myth, it grew from the spit of the hellhound Zerberus, and even in pre-Roman times the “Aconit” powder extracted from the root was used as a reliable poison for hunting and murder. It also helps to retransform werewolves, hence the name “Wolves Bane”. Nonetheless, its glorious blossom beautified the winter garden studio. As most of our talks were held in English, Helen took care of their German translations.

For this evening (and ensuring night), our listeners were indeed a mixed crowd. Datscha Radio’s Nightgardening date coincided with the World Day of Feminist Radio, which we consequently joined with our programme, and even from 7pm on, Sound Art Radio in Devon, UK, was following our programme in excerpts. (A complete list of re-broadcasting radio stations will follow at the end of this resume.)

Listening pumpkin

Niki Matita had pre-produced a sound walk, walking with Fiep the cat along the garden plots of a ship, so we played “Nachts im Garten der MS Sputnik”, which was followed by Joan Schuman’s superb piece “Ligature”, about two conjoined twins whispering themselves to sleep. Mariah Blue’s “Hypnagogia” followed, which dealt with the auditory hallucinations that occur while falling asleep.

Iltakahvit with Niina

At around 9pm, the Finnish artist and performer Niina Lehtonen-Braun arrived, together with Ela Spalding herself and Niko de Paula Lefort, who carried a big suitcase with him.

“Iltakahvit with Niina Nokkonen“ proved to be a delightful on-the-fly lecture involving Finnish lullabies, mother’s and grandmother’s advice and sayings, nightly bedtime rituals, and of course the art of brewing coffee – with and without homemade brandy. From now on we’ll be sure never to go to bed without a handkerchief… and always to wear clean underwear and the most beautiful nightgown!

Measuring the coffee for Niina’s bedtime stories

Our programme continued with another performance recording, this time by Martyna Posnanska: “Requiem for a Fly”. And a new format was ceremonially introduced. In “Breaking Nuts“, the garden’s hazelnuts were cracked in order to find out if they contained stories. Most of them did!

Kate Donovan used a walkie-talkie for her reading performance outside the Datscha, which featured a text by Rikki Ducornet about nightwalking, looking, imagining… “Once when the moon’s full face illuminated the paths of sand I entertained this reverie: I imagined a planet where languages grow as spontaneously as crystals; I pretended that the fossils – so perfectly round – were the seeds of new moons.”

Ms Donovan reads Ducornet

Niko’s suitcase turned out to be a Eurorack modular synthesizer. He described his performance “Aurality“ as a live rehearsal; he has just started developing and practicing the compositions for this series, which will be played later in November in “Acud Macht Neu” in Berlin.

“Aurality” with Niko de Paula Lefort

From there, we went straight from one Archipel member to another: Ela Spalding joined us live on air. She introduced her work “Ocaso / Sundown”. Ela performed a special ‘bedtime routine’ with us, reading a story (about thinking of Berlin in a deep-time context) and singing a lullaby live.

At 11:30 pm, the artist and musician Ansgar Wilken unwrapped his percussion items from a towel and spread them on the floor. Among them were a dust pan, a metal ashtray, a silver chain, tiny gongs, marbles in a bowl, and several items made from wire, rubber or other things. His percussive concert led us into “The secret Rhythm of Tulpen und Narzissen“. At an incredible speed, the objects on the floor were drummed, strummed and stroked, plucked and picked, arranged and rearranged into ever-changing patterns that could be heard and seen. Our following talk dealt with morning rituals – from the unchanging sequence of drying the body after a shower, to the catastrophe of missing milk in morning coffee.

Too fast to get captured on film: Mr. Wilken

Outside, still more guests had arrived, and were enjoying food and drinks at the table. Podcaster Laura Lukitsch had come to record material for her next radio show. Artist Marold Langer-Philippsen held his recording gear in his hand, directing it towards the hissing flames of the fire bin in preparation for his upcoming performance in the wee morning hours.

Midnight had come. “The Beetles’ Harvest Supper“ saw the artist and scientist Kat Austen dealing with a bowl of flour, some milk, an egg, spoons filled with baking powder. Drawing on human harvest rituals to ensure a good harvest for the next year, Kat carried out the “Rite of Future Beetles”, to ensure an abundant ecosystem for insects next year. This involved baking beetle corn spirits, summoning the season’s remaining beetles with a bright vivid BANG!, and sharing the corn spirits with them at midnight.

Don’t forget the antenna, or the spell won’t work

Niki Matita had prepared two other pre-productions for us to play in her absence: “Knöpfrunde“, a short radio play by Hermann Bohlen, and “Mitternächtliche Klangreise” (Midnight sound journey), a performance by the Berlin musician, shaman and healer Zelda Panda. More compositions from the open call found their way onto the air waves, including two works by Chelidon Frame, one by Alex Head (curator of the Berlin radio project “Networked Independence”) and Ana Berkenhoff’s “Beastjetzt“. “After the moonrise“ and “Low rise“ framed Ms Schaffner’s presentation of “Singing Fires“, which was a compilation of archived field recording files recorded by the music anthropologist Sisukas Poronainen on the occasion of a ceremonial gathering at Pauanne, Kokkola, in West-Finland in 2004.

Not singing but conversing: Kate and Kat in a fiery surrounding

Mainly sung by a fire, the ceremonial songs contained lyrics from the Kalevala, a cosmogonic myth in verses, compiled by Elias Lönnerot in 1835. Although recorded in the 21st century, the atmosphere of the songs and runos (magic spells) felt very ancient.

A new round of “Breaking Nuts“ with Helen Thein, Gabi Schaffner and Kate Donovan spelled out more wondrous stories, like the rather sad one about a pair of siblings housed in a walnut and getting eaten by us…
More hummed lullabies by Ela Spalding filled the air, as well as Leon Twardy’s “Excerpt of Nana“ and a long field recording of the Datscha fire.

A blue mask for “Maschkera”

„Maschkera“ by Marold Langer-Philippsen started at 3:30 at a meditative pace with sounds sampled from the fire outside, spoken word, interstellar telefax recordings from Marold’s 2019 project “Moon Bouncing”… One by one, sound loops connecting to more sound loops connecting to instrumental live instrumentation (bells, hand clapping, phone playbacks), “Maschkera” took up pace, with the artist breathing into a blue mask that has been soundwise modified to produce different tones emerging either from its left or right mouthpiece.

Re-sounding faxes from the moon

As morning encroached, our last guest, the artist and computer scientist Peggy Sylopp, arrived at 6:30 for a contemplative morning walk scheduled for 7 o’clock. In her hand she held a hand-manufactured device that would allow us to “Hear How You Like To Hear“. For unresolved technical reasons, though, we had to take our walk through the garden without the self-determined hearing aid that she had developed in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institut for people with and without hearing impairment.

How to hear what you like to hear

Left alone with our sleep-drowsy senses, we explored the plots, smelled the last remaining roses of the year, picked fallen apples and mused at the rosy glowing chem trail of an airplane that slowly dissolved into another last brilliant autumn day. Thank you for listening!

8:00: Time for breakfast, one last picture… and plans for a Datscha Radio in 2020.

Not quite awake but quite awake: The Datscha ladies

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Baked Beetles Recipe (A Rite for Future Beetles)

  • Around 500g of baking flour
  • One large egg
  • A teaspoon of baking powder
  • Milk 

Mix together the flour and baking powder thoroughly. Make a hollow and break in the egg. Add a splash of milk and begin to mix. Gradually add more milk until the mixture is stiff and before it becomes sticky. If you add too much milk, add a little flour to compensate. Spread flour on a baking tray. Take a ping pong ball sized portion of the mixture and form it into a beetle shape, then place it on the baking tray. You can use spaghetti or cloves for the antennae. Repeat until all the mixture is used. Bake in the oven at 150 degrees for 10 minutes. To summon the beetles you can try throwing copper chloride in the bonfire, but they only come on special harvest days….

NightGardening III was rebroadcast (in parts) by: World Day of Feminist Radio (Freirad Innsbruck, Freies Radio Neumünster, Free FM Ulm, SoundArt Radio, Freies Radio Berlin Brandenburg (colaboradio, frrapo Potsdam and Ohrfunk).

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The town of Palazzolo Acreide is situated 43 kilometres (27 mi) from the city of Syracuse in the Hyblean Mountains. Its cemetery is a city of stone for itself  and probably hosts more inhabitants than the town has living ones.

A city of the dead
…with rows of fresh flowers

“Il Giorno dei Morti” had  been the day before yesterday, and we found the cemetery dotted with flowers. The air was saturated from the scent of lilies, with the herbal aroma of the chrysanthemums wavering in between. The after noon sun shone on granite and sandstone, there were impressive family vaults in the shape of small cathedrals, and graves so massively lidded with marble slabs that even on the day of resurrection the dead underneath would not be able to lift them …

The dead here do not rest in earth, or do they? By what means are these massive stones lifted then?
Many gravestones were adorned with finely chiseled rose garlands, quite in the style of softly rounded rococo roses (in contrast to rose reliefs on German cemeteries that usually show a tea-hybrid style rose). Maybe this was a specialty of the local stonemason at that time.

Stone roses
… and sunglasses (after dark)

All gravestones carried oval enamel or porcelain plates with a portrait of the deceased, the majority of them in black and white. Stern faces, many of them young. Some men were portrayed with their sunglasses on. Among the women there were many beauties that had died in their early 20s or 30s. No one was smiling (except for a lady on a 1980s colour photograph). Time and sunlight and rain had worked on the surface chemistry of the portraits: Silvery lines and spots obscured parts of the face, or partly changed their expression. It made them reminiscent of photographs of ghost séances –with the ectoplasma appearing as a silvery or white substance in the picture. But even without blemishes many faces spoke clearly of the hardships of Sicilian life: black eyes staring relentlessly back at the visitors, hairdos worn like invincible castles, and an unspoken sadness in the lines of the mouth of all of them.

Von Zeit zu Zeit
Amazing artwork

There were rose bushes too, growing by the side of the gravestones. By the size of their branches they must have been old. 50 years, 70 years and plus. I kept wondering why or who would plant a rose in between either two graves or just at the border of a stone. “These roses”, said Patti, “maybe just fell out off the bouquets or wreaths and took root.” “These are grafted roses”, I said, “I don’t believe so”.

Rosehips enjoying the sunlight
… despite the confinement

We passed dozens of bushes, each almost directly growing from under a grave. In my imagination all those roses had been there first. Maybe this place had been a former rose garden. Or, when the cemetery was founded, the graves were smaller and earth only with a small stone. Any rose bush planted at that time could continue to grow after having graciously endured the great marble immortality of the late 1940’s.

A different arrangement with melocactus
Dead and alive at the same time: an opuntia
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