Radia Show 1124: Cul-de-sac By Radio Atatakai (Guest Slot)

Radio Atatakai is a radio art project and station run by artists Tata Frenkel and dr. Jan Glöckner. Jan’s research interest is choreographic potential of fungi and humans, with a focus on biotechnology, deep tank fermentation, radio and dance. And Tata’s artistic practice encompasses radio, radio-acoustic instruments, diagrammatic drawings, and performative narratives in which the limits of articulation, themes of health and care, and the communication physics intertwine. Radio Atatakai calls itself a tiny intergalactical station that runs two big sub-programs called “Autonomous education for radio spectrum” and “Fundamental principles of permanent fun”. But maybe that’s the least interesting thing about it. Jan lives with rapidly progressing ALS, while Tata is Jan’s main caretaker. Hence the radio exists in the routine of palliative care. Since the beginning of the Radio Atatakai, it has been transmitting through the high resistance of medical crisis, it was and still is bringing meaning, ground and freedom to create, communicate, share and just to stay yourself when the disease takes one’s ability to participate physically. Radio Atatakai wants to emphasize voices, unseen bodies, radio sky that belongs to everybody. Palliative arts is something that cares for the end, doesn’t ignore it, doesn’t mystify it, it is about care in multitude of its forms. At the same time, for us, it mainly affects the framework, the flexible curation of the transmissions – station is completely adjusted so it’s good for one’s condition, so it’s fun without any damage to energy levels, a producer is also a caregiver, we totally live by unpredictability, by easying the symptoms.

In this show, we have a small restrospective trip that happens somewhere outside. Music and editing by Tata Frenkel. Voices: Jan Glöckner and Tata.

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Each week one member of the Radia Network produces a show for all the others. The Radia Network emerged from a series of meetings, clandestine events, late-night club discussions, and a lot of email exchanges between cultural radio producers across Europe. The topics vary and the reasons for forming a network are many, but Radia has become a concrete manifestation of the desire to use radio as an art form. The approaches differ, as do the local contexts; from commissioned radio art works to struggles for frequencies to copyright concerns, all the radios share the goal of an audio space where something different can happen. That different is also a form in the making––radio sounds different in each city, on each frequency. Taking radio as an art form, claiming that space for creative production in the mediascape and cracking apart the notion of radio, is what Radia does.

It is producing radio stuff that is hard to describe. Some of it can be labeled radio art, or experimental radio, or creative radio. Sometimes it talks, sometimes it doesn’t. It can be noisy, or a kind of soundscape, or a documentary, a document, a talk, a performance. Each and every week, one of the partners will provide the network program, commissioned and produced especially for this purpose: being broadcast by all the partners and made available online.

Some things have to be said about all those partners. They are radio stations, of the independent, non-commercial, community, cultural species. They all speak different languages, and this should create interesting problems. Although initially they were all European radio stations this has changed over time, and Radia has become not only larger but also more diverse: 22 partners in 14 countries and growing all the time.

Radia Stations

* Duuu (Paris, FR)

* ∏node (Mulhouse, Paris, FR)

* Diffusion (Sydney, AU)

* JET FM (Nantes, FR)

* Kanal 103 (Skopje, MK)

* Orange 94.0 (Vienna, AT)

* Radio Campus (Brussels, BE)

* Radio Grenouille (Marseille, FR)

* Radio Helsinki (Graz, AT)

* Radio One 91 FM (Dunedin, NZ)

* Radio Panik (Brussels, BE)

* Radio Papesse (Firenze, IT)

* Radio Student (Ljubljana, SI)

* radio x (Frankfurt/Main, DE)

* Rádio Zero (Lisboa, PT)

* RadioWORM (Rotterdam, NL)

* Reboot.fm (Berlin, DE)

* Resonance FM (London, UK)

* Soundart Radio (Dartington, UK)

* TEA FM (Zaragoza, ES)

* Usmaradio (San Marino, SM)

* Wave Farm WGXC 90.7-FM (New York, USA)

Affiliates

* Kunstradio (Vienna, AT)

* Mobile Radio (Ürzig, DE)

* Rádio Zero (Lisboa, PT)

* Radioart106 (Haifa, PS48)

Syndicated By

* Campus Paris (Paris, FR)

* Harrogate Community Radio (North Yorkshire, UK)

* KZradio (Tel Aviv, IL)

* Noise Radio (Zwolle, NL)

* Radio ARA (Luxembourg, LU)

More information at http://radia.fm