Radiophonic Spaces is at the same time a walk-in radio space and an experimental archive – a symbiosis of an artistic exploration of radio art and radiophony and an academic research project headed by the Chair of Experimental Radio at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Under the artistic direction of Nathalie Singer, a team of radio artists and researchers conceived this experimental archive, which was designed by the artist, architect and musician Cevdet Erek.
The works made accessible in Radiophonic Spaces range from early radio experiments to contemporary productions. Radio researchers, musicologists, editors, critics and artists from the
most varied of contexts and disciplines selected over 200 works from 100 years of international radio art for Radiophonic Spaces and arranged them in 13 ‘narratives’. The result is a kaleidoscopic overview of the development of radio art as well as of recurring themes, motifs and procedures.
The listening discovery course allows works of radio art to be heard that are often, otherwise difficult to access and to relate these to different contexts. Radiophonic Spaces is an experimental archive that does not claim to be either complete or self-contained. Rather, it is an invitation to the public to playfully reflect on the design and structure of the radiophonic space. An immersive headphone system enables visitors to quite literally submerse themselves in radio art and to listen their way through the collection.
This scenography is combined with a digital reference book on the history of radio art. Documents that in the past have often disappeared into archives have been brought together here in a multimedia compilation for the first time: radio plays, acoustic excerpts from productions, scripts, scores and personal recordings, documentary images from the studios as well as filmed statements by composers, authors and directors. Questions about the relationships between the cultural and political geneses of the works, the experimental studio conditions and the resulting aesthetics can also be explored here.