Media

Chris Watson, Wildlife Recordist

Audio art in Germany is attracting a growing audience at festivals, exhibitions and events. Audio plays and radio art are gaining renewed momentum from a lively exchange with the visual arts, experimental music and advanced forms of theatre. With performances staged in theatres, cinemas and clubs, the "invisible arts" are moving into the spotlight.

Audio art is transient by nature, which is why it is so important to hold onto special moments. Two recent examples: 4 June 2007, at the German Bundesrat (the upper house of the German parliament) in Berlin. A string quartet has just completed its first performance. Minister of the Interior (retired) Gerhart Baum speaks of the "vulnerability of culture". A voice issues harshly from the loudspeakers: "Create your own image of humanity!" Schorsch Kamerun, punk musician, author and theatre director, whose band "Die goldenen Zitronen" (i.e. The golden lemons) gave its first concerts 20 years ago in the squatter scene in Hamburg, trumpets his enthusiasm for radio drama: an art form which requires patience and an audience capable of concentrating. He is the winner of this year's "Radio Drama Award of the War Blind", the most coveted prize for authors of German-language audio drama, for his radio play "Ein Menschenbild, das in seiner Summe Null ergibt" (i.e. An image of humanity whose sum total is zero" (broadcast on WDR).

20 April 2007, at Pariser Platz in Berlin. As if in response to a secret signal, around a hundred people, scattered all over the square in front of the Brandenburg Gate, start acting the fool. Simultaneously, they start walking more quickly, jump up in the air, and begin dancing – right in the midst of the crowds of tourists, bicycle taxis, political demonstrators and visiting dignitaries; they photograph each other, lie down and hammer their fists on the ground, and then finally assemble to walk backwards through the Brandenburg Gate in a sort of procession. The "Radio Drama Week", an international festival of audio art organized by the Academy of Arts, opened with this "radio ballet" performed by the LIGNA group. Though none of those watching could hear the instructions which the performers were receiving through headphones, the spectacle played havoc with the square's usual pace of life for an hour.

New sounds from the magic box

Audio art is on the move, and has long ceased to be found solely in the domain of radio, even if the public broadcasters still provide it with its most important basis. It is thanks in part to the country's federal broadcasting system that audio drama and radio art – in Germany of all places – have been able to achieve a level of diversity which is unique in the world.

The ARD public broadcasting corporation produces around 400 new audio plays a year (that is, counting the many drama series, which comprise usually two or three, and sometimes ten, twenty or more episodes, as one production each). On top of this are another 80 or so new productions courtesy of the nationwide broadcasters DeutschlandradioKultur and Deutschlandfunk. Each of the nine ARD stations has its own special focus, giving a distinct profile to audio plays, sound art and radio features. All the stations broadcast literary audio dramas; at MDR, NDR and RBB there is a clear emphasis on plays which critically reflect contemporary everyday life – these are fostered by competitions and programmes for young dramatists. Young authors and playwrights also enjoy special status at Radio Bremen, a station which knows all about how to bring the radio archives to life in as imaginative a way as possible.

The programmes put on air by the Saarländischer Rundfunk are influenced by the region's proximity to France, and include material and contemporary plays from francophone countries (France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland). The broadcaster WDR has played an important role in stimulating audio plays with the help of musicians, theatre- and film-makers like Schorsch Kamerun and Christoph Schlingensief, and has also invented the "danceable feature" and opened radio art to contemporary classical music with the traditional "Studio Acoustic Art" – as has regional broadcaster SWR, which once a year invites contenders to compete for the "Karl-Sczuka Award", one of the most important international prizes given for musically-oriented radio art. The Hessischer Rundfunk also offers musicians, DJs and visual artists scope for experimentation. At Bavarian regional broadcaster BR, the "Audio Play and Media Art" department – often in collaboration with theatres and art institutions – has revived live and pop audio plays, following in the tradition of the early radio avant-garde. International sound art and innovative forms such as mini-dramas (like the so-called "Wurfsendung"), sound miniatures ("sound of the month") and Internet radio ("blogspiel") can be found at DeutschlandradioKultur, while Deutschlandfunk likes to give a political edge to its audio plays and features. This gives, at least, a brief overview of the current situation.

Composers and artists as audio play makers

Ever since the earliest dawn of radio, audio art has enjoyed a fruitful exchange with other art forms. This applies to the early experiments undertaken in the 1920s and 1930s, influenced as they were by theatre, film and urban literature, and especially to the so-called "New Audio Drama" which has been around since the 1960s and early 1970s and which gave radio art in Germany its intermedial and international status. John Cage produced audio plays for various German broadcasters, and was copied by a whole host of artists and composers: from Mauricio Kagel and Bill Fontana, George Brecht to Pierre Henry and the sound experimentalists of today like FM Einheit or Philip Jeck.

The greatest potential scope for the development of audio art still lies today in the hybrid, intermedial art forms. This was demonstrated most recently at the "Radio Drama Week" where, in cooperation with the Goethe Institute in Lisbon and Portuguese radio station RDP, musicians, dramatists and sound artists from Portugal presented their radio plays and performances, giving a vivacious impression of the audio art scene of a country which in recent years has played virtually no role whatsoever in international media competitions such as the "Prix Europa" or the "Prix Italia".

Audio art to see and touch

The decision by ARD to hold its own Audio Play Days 2006 and 2007 in the "Centre for Art and Media" (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, a media art house of international repute, is a clear statement to those still sitting on the fence: radio is the active core, and it is foaming at the edges. Artist Michaela Melián is a good example of this. Last year, she won the War Blind Award for her audio play "Föhrenwald" which was produced as part of an audiovisual installation by BR in collaboration with "kunstraum münchen": images projected onto the wall, together with the soundtrack (which is also broadcast separately on the radio), jointly tell the story of a reception camp for Jewish survivors from all over Europe.

The fact that audio art can now be experienced more and more frequently at exhibitions and theatres, in clubs and at festivals like the Berlin Radio Drama Week, the Erlangen Festival of Audio Art, the Audio Drama Festival in Weimar and the Leipzig Audio Play Summer, has one positive side effect: the otherwise invisible audience steps out into the limelight, and is not nearly as insignificant nor as grey-haired and veiled in nostalgia as the listener statistics of the various high-brow radio stations continue to suggest. The reasons behind this new enjoyment of audio art are without doubt extremely varied. For some, it is the rediscovery of a childhood love. However, it is also impossible to ignore the interest shown by a new generation of artists and media designers, who grew up with all kinds of different media and, in working with sound, believe they have found one attractive alternative among others, especially if they are not forced to strictly renounce all other forms of expression at the same time. Among the students at art, film, theatre, media and music colleges, for instance, audio art is attracting a new wave of followers and experimental makers. This can also have a ripple effect back on radio if audio drama does not lock itself inside its magic box, but remains open to new influences and impulses.