Radia

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Started in April 2005, the Radia Network is an international informal network of community radio stations that have a common interest in producing and sharing art works for the radio. In 2008, the network gathers 16 radio stations from 14 cities across 11 countries, speaking 8 different languages[1]. It also organizes linked-up events and special broadcasts. The Radia Network intends to be a space of reflection about today's radio and radio art. Its activities contribute to intercultural exchange and artworks and artists movement.

The network's name freely refers to La Radia [2], Futurist manifesto written by Federico Tomaso Marinetti and Pino Masnata in 1933. The network's founders dropped the La to distance themselves from the Futurists' political views. As it stands alone, "radia" is simply "radio" or "radios" in some languages.

Contents

[edit] Shows

The Radia Network's basis is a weekly 28 minutes show broadcast by all the stations. Each station produces the show in turns. Every round of shows is called a season.

[edit] Content

As stated in their jingle, Radia is "bringing new and forgotten ways of making radio to [their] listeners. Each week [they] give artists the challenge to make radio that works all across Europe and beyond."

The Radia show intends to cross boundaries and address people of different languages and cultures. It usually explores the different genres of radio art, separately or by mixing them: sound art, electroacoustic music, sound poetry, radio drama, soundscape.

[edit] Production

Usually each member radio station commissions an artist from their local artistic community and gives him/her carte blanche for producing a show. In that sense, Radia uses radio as a gallery for sound art pieces.

[edit] Exchange

For sharing the shows together, the Radia Network uses Radioswap.net, a semi-public closed platform for program exchange between community radios.

[edit] Members

Members of the Radia Network are radio stations, webradios and art-radio projects that broadcast the Radia weekly show and produce shows in turns.

[edit] Founding members

On 3-7 February 2005, there was a first meeting of radio stations in Berlin under the banner of NERA (New European Radio Art). The decision was taken to start a broadcast season the following April, and an email discussion list was set up on which the name Radia was finally settled on.

Founding members are:

  • Resonance FM (London)
  • RIIST (to become Rádio Zero, Lisbon)
  • Kanal 103 (Skopje)
  • Reboot.fm (to become Backyard Radio, Berlin)
  • Radio Campus (Brussels)
  • Radio Cult (Sofia), will drop out on December 2006
  • Tilos Radio (Budapest)
  • Orange (Vienna)
  • Radio Oxygen (Tirana), would actually never contribute.

[edit] New members

  • Radio Grenouille (Marseille, France), February 2006[3]
  • Lemurie TAZ (Prague, Czech Republic), March 2006
  • free103point9 (New York City, USA), first non-European radio station, September 2006
  • Radio Panik (Brussels, Belgium), January 2007
  • SounDart Radio (Dartington, UK), March 2007
  • Radio Corax (Halle, Germany), May 2007
  • Radio X (Frankfurt, Germany), April 2008
  • XL Air (Brussels, Belgium) will start with a first contribution on June 2008
  • CKUT (Montreal, Canada), second radio station from North America, will start on July 2008

Partners of the network are ÖRF Kunstradio (Vienna), InterSpace (Sofia).

[edit] Special events and broadcasts

  • 15-18 October 2004: Resonance "Radio Art Riot", a four-night event bringing together some of the foremost radio artists and thinkers from around the world in a studio-as-creative-lab situation which featured round table discussions, live radio art, performances at venues around London and streamed events from other countries. Themes included ‘Plunderphonics/Sampling’, 'Copyright/Copyleft’ and ‘Radio Text’. This was the first time that some of the radio stations that would later become Radia worked together - Resonance 104.4FM from the U.K., reboot.fm from Germany, Radio Orange and Kunstradio from Austria, Tilos from Hungary and Radio Cult from Bulgaria.
  • 10-14 April 2006: Meeting in Lisboa and co-producing of a radio art festival with Rádio Zero under the banner of RadiaLx2006.
  • 15 September 2006: First Radia special, simultaneously broadcast live on 9 radio stations: Time labs is a collection of one-minute pieces from artists of the Radia Network. It was released for the final conference of the radio.territories project.
  • April 2007: The Radia Network has received an honorary mention at the 2007 Prix Ars Electronica[4] in the category "digital communities" of the Ars Electronica Festival.
  • 19 July 2007: The Radia Network is presented at the Radio Grenouille's Grenouille Capitale festival in Paris, with a special piece by Radio Free Robots collective broadcast on Radio Campus Paris.
  • 28 October 2007: The Radia Network was invited by the Radiophonic festival in Brussels. Radioactive Radiophony is a 4 hour live show made with in situ and streamed performances, simultaneously broadcast on 13 radio stations.
  • December 2007 - January 2008: Diverse retrospectives of the Network's recent activity. 3 journeys through Radia on ÖRF Kunstradio, a Radia retrospective on Resonance FM, Espectro Electro Magnético on Antena 2 (Rádio e Televisão de Portugal).
  • 28 February - 8 March 2008: Radia shows are featured daily on the "AV festival radio station" in Newcastle. Besides this regular shows from Radia member stations are broadcast on Soundscape FM in Sunderland.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ German, English, French, Czech, Portuguese, Macedonian, Hungarian, Dutch
  2. ^ La Radia Futurist manifesto of October 1933 by Federico Tomaso Marinetti and Pino Masnata (Originally published in "Gazzetta del Popolo")
  3. ^ Chosen date is the date of first contribution to the network.
  4. ^ According to the Ars Electronica website, "The Radia Network is a community of independent radio stations who have combined to facilitate an ongoing shared cultural initiative. The stations, based throughout Europe, share in weekly commissioned pieces that explore radio as an art form. Each station produces a piece in turn, which all of the partners then publish. The pieces do not seek to promote a common language, but to celebrate the diversity of the breadth of their contributors. It uses the possibilities opened up by the net to share the work and ideas not only of the stations but also of the artistic communities that themselves represent the audience of each contributor and then, through extension, of the whole."

[edit] External links

  • Listen to Kunstradio's Journeys through Radia 1, 2 and 3