Yesterday evening the „Radio as Art“ conference in Bremen (Germany) was opend with a wonderful keynote lecture of Hank Bull, one of the first artists who considered themselfes explicitly as radio artists. The title of the lecture performance: „The Reception of Electricity.“
Hank Bull making a live radio show.
Hank Bull in actiona, back then and now.
Marcel Duchamp, the radio artist.
Hank Bull explaining how van Gogh invented the light bulb.
It was a live radio show at its best that Hank Bull gave to the audience at the Guest House of the Universität Bremen and the listeners of the four webradios that are connected with the live-stream of Mobile Radio (documentation @ SoundCloud). In combination with recalling the history of the legendary „HP Show“ (1976 to 1984) Hank Bull gave a wonderful overview of the history of electricity starting in the 18th century and tracing it up to our presence. In doing so he showed how philosophers like Marx and Nietzsche missed the revolutionary dimension of electricity, that „killed God“ and gave birth to new „Gods“ through the human imagination like Frankenstein’s monster, Nosferatu and the alien voice.