Mme Schaffner fühlt sich geehrt und hocherfreut, dass sie mit ihrem Projekt Datscha Radio von November bis Januar 2025/26 in Japan reisen kann. Ermöglich wird dies durch das großzügige Stipendium der Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn.
Ich möchte mich an dieser Stlle bei Marion Bösen vom Verein 23 / Güterbahnhof Bremen bedanken, die mich inzwischen mit dem Künstlerhaus Cap Kobe und der dortigen Künstlergemeinschaft Bison bekannt gemacht hat, von wo aus ich meine lokalen Radioerkundungen starten werde.
Details zu weiteren Plänen, Reiserouten und Radioprogrammen folgen zu gegebener Zeit.
(Übersetzung folgt) We admit: Datscha Radio’s location for its first broadcast installation, the so-called swamp Marais de Wiels sent our heads spinning with ideas about ambiguous, amphioxus habitats and frogs – both in real as well as in digital realities. And those reverberations kept their echoes and amplifcations up …
For the first time, Datscha Radio experimented with AI contents and tackled strategies of how to make creative use of them. Our program included research into digital forensics, (field) recordings of the internet, weather forecasts and news from the past and future, pop songs and fantasy story telling – swapping the levels of acute presence and fantasized future scenarios – while conducting interviews in the neighborhood.
Datscha Radio’s stream could be listened to on P-node Radio, on datscharadio.de and on cashmereradio.com. On both days we broadcast also for analogue radio on 89.7 FM.
Intro Sumpfsender
The festival Oscillation ::: The Weather happened from May 1-4 in Brussels, Belgium, with venues strewn over the whole expanse of the city. For information, please see: https://www.oscillation-festival.be/2025/
So much said, here comes a resume of both days.
Marais de Wiels, May 1, 4-6 pm, 2025
The ‘swamp’ in the Wiels district emerged as a consequence of ill-planned housing constructions
The Marais de Wiels formed as an accidental body of water in 2007, when ill-planned construction works for a building led to a rise of groundwater, rendering the concept of new builds obsolete. The area, a spread of some 8000 square meters, settled as a nature reserve, greatly welcomed by the surrounding working-class population of the Wiels district in Brussels.
Improvised housing close to the urban gardening project and community center Le Brass
When we arrived, the place was buzzing with wild plants, insects, idlers, and a million frogs. An urban garden near the Le Brass community centre, legalised wall surfaces for graffiti artists, benches and wooden platforms for conversations complement this precarious recreational space, which also provides a tolerated free space for some homeless people and their need for small, self-built houses. Much of our prior information of the place was luckily provided by a paper by Urbane Praxis, “Resurging bodies of water in Urban Spaces” (https://www.urbanepraxis.berlin/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/UPON_Talk3_EN.pdf ).
With our station situated amidst the vegetation to the ‘bogsite’, the programme followed a winding thread of conversations about the Marais, interspersed with live interviews, field recordings on site, weather reports from the past, present and future and included the introduction of two secret hero(in)es who have made the swamp their garden: Bogman and Swamperella. These creatures, which no one has ever seen, fueled our imagination of the Marais de Wiels and its future development.
Drawing: Marie Baudet. From the workshop “Au Travers Du Miroir”, April 30, 2025
A quick overview of our show’s contents that day
– War&Weather: War, climatic and economical changes affect deeply our present stay on this planet. The 1st of May seemed a fitting date to reflect on this. Ernst Jandl’s poem “schtzngrmm“ flowed into a disconcerting news soundscape, followed by “The weather”. Our ensuing chat highlighted on the site, and its urban history, and the tradition of celebrating the first of May. – Prior to our shows and on invitation of the community center “Le Brass”, a 3-day workshop (Au travers du Miroir/Gabi Schaffner) had investigated the ecologies of the ‘swamp’. Recordings of the students formed part of our further talks. – “The Grafitti Underground field recordings”, and a parabol shotgun ‘spy mic’ that takes drawings of traffic – richard hamilton please call back ! – Since 2015, a group of citizens known as Les Fé.e.s du Marais (the fairies of the swamp) has been safeguarding the site. We spoke to Julia as one of them. Julia lives in the neighbourhood of the Marais and has been organizing communal activities there since the beginning. Our interest in their “Dirt Parties” led to extended questions (and recordings) of urban waste management and the cultural call around trash and dirt. Fix my street ! – The need for a bar conversation – Diaries and weather books – the log is locked – Has forecast a history ? – Introduction of Bogman and Swamperella – Talk with Marta Zapparoli who was one of the artists to perform that day, about her piece “Interdimensional Generated Space (The Final Symphony)” – “Water Memories” by Gabi Schaffner, a recording of stories told by Gustave and Marie, members of the workshop, induced by the smell of the site’s stale water body. – Swamperella’s Swamp Song
This is how it looked like. Our studio amidst the bushes. Photo: Julia Eckhardt
Sumpfsender calling from Jean-Félix Hap Park, May 3, 3-6 pm
Our surroundings in the Félix Hap Park in the Etterbeck district differed greatly from the Marais Wiels: A well-kept garden scape with two ponds, mowed lawns and tulip tree famous for its size and beauty. The main entrance of the park is guarded by a small lodge, where a guardian keeps watch over the gate and visitors. On our park exploration day prior to the event, we were lucky to meet (and record) Marie, who works as a Guardian of Peace in the neighbourhood.
Marie Gabriele, Guardian of Peace.
With plenty of audio in the pipeline and an hour plus, our programme on day two evolved more towards experimentation, including two other live events taking place on site alongside our show.
A heap of stones, Justin Bennet’s organic set-up
At 4 and 5pm, Justin Bennett gave a concert entitled ‘a heap of stones’ in the Orangerie building, while artist Rory Salter performed a day-long piece on the wooden platform of the larger pond, recording his physical presence in the midst of this watery world. For both, Datscha Radio transmitted sound and talk via telephone. Using this extremely simple technique melted seamlessly with our main themes for this day: Real and imagined ‘digital swamps’, the impact of AI on the earthly environments and a sequel to the story of Swamperella and Bogman. Datscha Radio’s broadcast ended with a conversation with Julia Eckhardt, founder and co-organisator of this 5th Oscillation festival in 2025 in Brussels.
Sketch of a plan. GS
Quick overview of our show’s contents
– 2095: “The News”; Bogman and Swamperella move to Happark; “The Weather” – AI in Datscha Radio. Talk & introduction of Hap Park in the Etterbeck district – Interview Maria Gabriele, Guardian of Peace, Hap Park, who explains about her work and how it bonds to community feeling, citizen’s everyday lives as well as public security – Musical greetings from Bogman and Swamperella – Thinking about AI and education: Early speech synthesis experiments from the 1940s. By Markus Stein – Field recordings from the internet: Imagined dark futures. Conversation & live mix. – 1st concert transmission from the Orangerie – Digital Swamps (And How to Record Them). We travel from fantasied data environments to concrete obsolete soundscapes of the internet and back – Five Hours in a Fake Forest. Composition/live mix – Unearthed: Tech forensics. Anecdotes and (country) music from the internet – Joseph Weisenberg: Computer psychotherapist. By Markus Stein – 2nd concert transmission – Gabi talks with artist Rory next to the park’s pond – Oscillation Festival – history & future plans
It was a drizzly day, and our radio attracted pink dragons next to other radio listeners
Datscha Radio wishes to thank all members of the festival team for their great support in setting up the radio stations!
Many thanks also to the Community Centre “Le Brass” and the participants of the workshop “Au Travers du Miroir” for their enthusiastic cooperation and for putting their recordings at our disposal for the broadcasts: It’s been great, Gustave, Maria, and Felice! More thanks to Norma Pendergast, and to Gina and Marie for their talks.
The Magic of the Analogue. Nomadic Academy of Experimental Arts, May 4-8 – Eine Rückschau
Es ist eine Weile her: Harakka Island Radio sendete in Finnland im Mai 2022 von der gleichnamigen kleinen Insel nur drei Bootsminuten vom Zentrum Helsinkis entfernt. Die Sendungen wurden ausschließlich analog über einen kleinen (genehmigten!) UKW-Transmitter übertragen. Die Magie des Analogen wurde auch bildlich beim Worte genommen. Aufgenommen von einer Panoramakamera russischer Provinienz belichtete Mme Schaffner einige alte Kleinbildfime, die sie erst kürzlich ins Labor brachte. Et voilà: Hier kommen die Harakka Island-Lichtzeichnungen!
The radio station at the entrance View with meThe nature guide and photographer Erkki MakkonenTo the seaThe gallery seen from behind and afarHumans are not allowed to stay on the island, only birdsSpring flowersRead More
Datscha Radio freut sich, seine Teilnahme am Oscillations Festival ::: Das Wetter, Brüssel. Organisiert vom Kunstlabor für experimentelle Musik und Klangkunst Q-O2.
Die Shows werden organisiert und realisiert von Gabi Schaffner und Ernst Markus Stein.
Datscha Radio im Marais Wiels und Happark Geplant sind zweitägige Radioexpeditionen, die die Klangwelten an jeweils unterschiedlichen Orten erkunden: Das Marais Wiels ist ein natürliches, aber zufälliges Gewässer im Herzen des Stadtzentrums, wo sich die Natur nach 10 Jahren Stilllegung des Geländes ihre Rechte zurückerobert hat. Der zweite Standort von Datscha Radio befindet sich im nahe gelegenen Happark, ebenfalls mit einem Gewässer in unmittelbarer Nähe.
Workshop „Au travers du miroir“ Noch nicht bestätigt, aber metaphorisch in der Luft liegt ein Workshop über die Pflanzen der Wiels-Marsch in Zusammenarbeit mit dem örtlichen Gemeindezentrum, geleitet von Mme Schaffner. Wir werden zwischen Mikro-Pflanzenlandschaften, Erinnerung und Seismographien unserer zeichnenden Hände ‘oszillieren’.
Datscha Radio’s 3hour show “The Gardens of Gyumri” can now be accessed on Mixcloud! Additionally you will find three recorded talks about Armenian ecology and plantlife:
– A Walk through the Seed Bank, Yerevan Botanic Garden. With Anush Nersesyan, leading researcher, Head of the «Seed Bank of Armenian Flora & Ex Situ Conservation in Living Collections» Research Group
– My Forest Armenia. With André Gumuchdjian, a Belgian-Armenian philanthropist and entrepreneur. He is also the founder and director of the board of the NGO My Forest Armenia
– Plant Diversity in Armenia. With Alla Aleksanyan, Head of the Chair of Plant Diversity and Ecosystem Studies, Botanic Institute in Yerevan
Datscha Radio’s day started with our arrival at the academy at sharp 11 am, meeting its director Vahagn Ghukasyan who had already put tables and stools on standby. Food and drinks were nicely arranged on their plates by Annette Gloser (FrankfurterSportundKunstkasino) who also assisted enthusiastically with setting up the radio station in the part-shade of two pinetrees. Testing went well, supervised by Marold Langer-Philippsen who has been maintaining our streaming activities since 2021.
A flock of art students arrived, Xenia, Susanna, Ani, Hasmik, Jane, curious about radio making and eager to contribute. Consequently, after a bit of music being played and Datscha Radio’s greetings to the listeners, the show started with their introductions.
Afterwards, our first radio guest Vahagn, explained about the academy’s artistic branches and goals in art education. As the listeners might have noticed, a short glitch with cable connections caused the fallback to become activated. In case you have wondered: It was a visit to a garden close to our home in the Mush II district in Gyumri when I was ‘kidnapped’ by two elderly ladies and taken to the kitchen to drink coffee
Meanwhile still more students arrived and gathered around or seated themselves comfortably on the benches in shade and sun. Co-founder of Art Basis, Mary Mikaelyan, joined the show via telephone and explained the work and aims of this artist platform dedicated to new and communal approaches in the Armenian art scene. More songs of the Armenian folk band “Tchamich” (“Raisins”) completed this first garden session.
With great joy we welcomed Ani Petrs-Bartsumian who had arrived with her two sisters, Janie Petrosyan and Vanessa.
Titled “The Song and Poetry Field”, our second part of the programme involved spoken word and prose readings. It opened with a jingle spoken by Christina and Maria, quickly having been improvised (because of a power cut and because it was raining) in the smithy located on the grounds of the garden. We also listened to the piece “Grace”, created by Indentity Runners, a cross-continental trio of women sound and media artists. Ani personally introduced her project “The Female Composer’s choir”. She is also the voice behind Datscha Radio’s ‘official’ announcement jingle and several short poems and rhymes which enriched the NightLoop. While being on location she also helped a lot with translations in conversations and in the acquisition of new radio guests, as you will see.
The “Poetry Field” continued with a reading of “Where ever I go, I am already there”, an ethnographic-poetic text by Gabi Schaffner put to paper in Gyumri. Originally written in English, the text had been translated into Armenian by Mary Mikaelyan and was consequently read in Armenian language by the academy’s students Hasmik and Ani.Anton Smirnov‘s piece “Crystals” and “Amplitudes and Frequencies” accompanied our talks.
Meanwhile, on over-hearing the sounds of cello and violins wafting from the main building, Annette and Ani Petrs-Bartsumian sneaked in and persuaded the musicians to come out into the garden. Such, we were granted with a stunning concert of 4 members of the Gyumri Branch of Yerevan State Conservatory, playing for us several works by Komitas and more Armenian composers: A great thanks to Armen Kartshyan (1st violin), Sasha Atanyan (2nd violin), Julieta Harutyunyan (viola) and Azat Karutyunyan (cello).
With our broadcast scheduled for three hours altogether, the time frame for our third theme “Into the Wild” had melted down quite a bit: Live guests rule! Field recording snippets interchanged with Joan Schuman’s (USA) empathic piece “Ghosts Wolves” and InHer Interior (AUS) sound walk “Coral Air Land” until it was time for another live phone talk, this time with with Marold about his upcoming show on the 4th of October in the garden of Getamej on the outskirts of Yerevan. Last piece of the broadcast was again “Armenian Folk Impro” by Love Hospital (Berlin), which had been swallowed up by the cable glitch at the beginning.
And already the time had come to say our goodbyes and to announce Datscha Radio’s nightloop! Datscha Radio hereby expressed its happy thanks to Art Basis for the invitation to work and do research in Yerevan and Gyumi, to Vahagn of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gyumri for hosting us and helping with all practical issues (from electricity, furniture to last-minute-SIMcard-activation!), to all our charming guests and contributors and, most definitely to all representatives of the Botanic Institute of Botanical Garden, Yervan, and all artists of the open call, who repleted this broadcast with so many different radiophonic colours!
After closing the show, we still had more fun, playing a field recording featuring an audio snippet called “vodka offering” to the security warden who came out for a chat. Despite sunshine, a cold breeze started tearing at our clothes… We wrapped up everything, including ourselves and finally said goodbye to the academy.
In a nutshell, this was it. Datscha Radio expresses its greatest thank to everybody involved, and especially to all contributors of the Open Call! As live radio always creates its own time flow with respective eddies, whirls and surprise guests while on, we were not able to play all works during the show. All of them were featured though in our NightLoop running from 8pm to 9 am Armenian time! For the archive edit of the whole show we will put them in as originally intended. Thank you for bearing with us until then, and once again, thank you all!!!
Specials and Current Extended Activities
Archival special to look forward too: ALL interviews about ARMENIAN BOTANICS AND ECOLOGY will be summed up in a separate audio documentation. Date: by 12 of October
The NIGHTLOOP will presumably run again on the 3rd-4th of October.
Starting on 4pm (Armenian time/ 2pm CET), radio artist Marold Langer-Philippsen will be streaming live his radiophonic expedition “Getamej’s Hanging Gardens”. While we will hang out in that garden, frolicking with food and drink and hopefully a true Armenian barbeque.
We will start with some introductions, followed by “Kabelbruch der Finsterniss – Geisterdaten”, a piece by DJ SchluchT which had been composed for our Open Call in the original Datscha garden in Berlin while he was tending the roses and tomatoes there. A short phone talk with Marold will enlight on his forthcoming live-storytelling about the mysteries of “Getamej’s Garden”. And yes, we will be right there, in Getamej, with our friendly host Joseph Zakarian. More guests: Momik Vardanyan from Art Basis and friends.
Only recently, RADIOEREVAN discovered that the origin of the Hanging Gardens was not in the country of UR, but rather in Media or even in Armenia. In fact, quite precisely in the Mid-Rivers, in Getamej.
Whether it was Semiramis or Amytis to whom the gardens were dedicated was probably best known to Nebuchadnezzar himself – so the three hosts of RADIOEREVAN will try to get to the bottom of things.
(Übersetzung folgt) In the picture above Annette Gloser, curator and savior of ‘lost places’, has lent her tender hands to paint our poster that we will stick tomorrow to the gate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gyumri, where the broadcast is taking place. She has freshly arrived 5 days ago and will accompany the broadcast as a friendly co-host, welcoming and feeding the guests and helping with basically everything…
NOTE: 14-17 o’clock is ARMENIAN TIME ZONE! FOR CET tune in at 12-15 o Clock
The Programme
Datscha Radio’s programme follows the flow of events. We will start with a live talk about the Academy with Vahagn Ghukasyan. Depending on her availability, ART BASIS co-founder Mary Mikaelyan via telephone. After this the waves flow freely, though gently contained into three main themes and interspersed with works of the Open Call.
For those who are new to this kind of handmade broadcasting style: The Gardens of Gyumri are about sharing, creation and listening… and surprises. This means, there is no fixed schedule I can offer which outlines the exact time of when which work is going to be presented.
LISTENING
Listen on the player in the side bar (right side) OR follow the link given below it OR listen on RADIO ANTENNA (Yerevan)! The programme is live: You won’t hear anything before 2 pm, 29th of September. Listen too on 90.6 FM in the garden of the Academy! Bring your radio!
I Into the Streets and Gardens
Introduction of guests present in the garden; interviews and music with people I have met in the streets, related open call pieces, field recordings and works from the Open Call, a walk through the greenhouses of the Botanical Garden Yerevan with a fervent plant lover. Pieces by Tchamich, Love Hospital, various short field recordings,
II The Song and Poetry Field
Introduction of live guest Ani Petrs-Bartsumian (and friends), who is the founder of the Fem_Com Choir; surprise live guest, reading of poetry by Armenian women poets in Armenian and English, open call pieces, reading of further texts translated into Armenian (Ուր էլ գնամ, արդեն այնտեղ եմ) Pieces by Anton Smirnov, the Fem_Com Choir, diverse field recordings and snippets
III Into the Wild/Armenian
This is the radiophonic realm of Armenian plant life and improvisation, featuring a talk with the founder of My Forest Armenia, AndréGumuchdjian, a talk with Alla Aleksanyan, Headof the Chair of Plant Diversity and Ecosystem Studies of the Botanic Institute, Yerevan, live phone conversation with Marold Langer-Phillipsen about “Getamej’s Hanging Gardens”, his upcoming radio event on the 4th of October, in the garden of the Getamej village, close to Yerevan.
Pieces by Joan Schuman, InHer Interior, Frontera Glaciar, DJ ShluchT, various short field recordings.
IV The NIGHTLOOP (6pm-7am CET)
From 20:00 to 9:00 on the 29th/30th of September you can listen to Gyumri Garden’s Nightloop. It contains, next to the works of the composers mentioned above, longer works by those composers whose works cover a longer stretches of time… ideal for a nightly rewilding of your dreams.
Featuring (a.e.): Calathea experiments (María Cristina Kasem); a talk with Ani Bayburdyanan, Deputy Director of the Botanic Garden about their Educational Programs for Children; Abican (Das Wasser ist niemals einsam), DJ Shlucht (extended version) and still more various field recording snippets and jingles.
Special thanks to Ani Petrs-Bartsumian and Mary Mikaelyan for their translation support and to Maria and Christina of the Art Academy for their joyful support in speaking one of the Gyumri radio jingles!
