radio sound system
sound system / mobile radio station / music instrument
documenta14
Kassel, Germany 2017
Radio Sound System is a miniaturised mobile radio station and a sound system.
Originated in Downtown Kingston, Jamaica, this iteration of the project provides a mobile response to the Narrowcast House, an open radio studio and listening space initiated by Anton Kats for documenta 14’s aneducation.
Operated in close partnership with local art and cultural initiatives, local artists and neighbours of Kassel’s Nordstadt, the project has invited practitioners to develop site-specific radio narrowcasts, that took forms of listening sessions, performances, on-air presentations, demonstrations, screenings, and installations. During the 100 days of the exhibition Radio Sound System has been employed in artistic projects, learning programs and has been used for transmissions and organising during demonstrations and workers union protests.
Developing Radio Sound Systems internationally within specific neighbourhoods, cultural and academic institutions led to the development of the work as an everyday-practice of bridging pragmatic questions of access and infrastructure with those of culture and knowledge production. Considering the interplay between both, the literal and the metaphorical dimensions of transmitting and receiving, posed a critical question: how listening practice can constitute a useful and collaborative method responding to site-specific problems in the everyday?
Enormous gratitude for the emergence and the manifestation of the project goes to everyone who took part in this project, specifically to the documenta14 team, documenta14 Chorus and the aneducation team, specifically to: Sepake Angiama, Clare Butcher, Arnisa Zeqo, Elli Paxinou, Alkisti Efthymiou, Byron Kalomamas, Ifigenia Papadatou, Juliane Gallo, Amelie Jakubek, Sabiha Keyif, Aiko Okamoto, Jeanne Delval, Claudia Maria Doulou, Yu Yen Lin-Woywod, Andara Shastika, Alexandra Tsipni-Kolaza, Lauri White.
Further Links:
Narrowcast House, documenta14
Images of the Radio Sound System in action: Anna Sorokovaya and Soshenko 33