Marie Skłodowska Curie Action Grant 2020 for „Sounding Crisis“

On Febuary 8, 2021 the European Commission announced the results of the MSCA Individual Fellowship 2020: This time €328 M in grants have been awarded to 1630 excellent experienced researchers from all over the world. It is my great pleasure and honour that my project „Sounding Crisis. Sonic Agency as Cognate Energies for Climate Action in Denmark/Greenland & Australia“ has been awarded one of these prestigious grants.

Weiterlesen

Karlsruher Postulate für Geschlechtergerechtigkeit im Kulturbetrieb

Im Rahmen der ARD-Hörspieltage 2019 fand auf Initiative der WDR-Hörspielredaktion der Thementag „Wie weiblich ist der Kulturbetrieb?“ statt. Er widmete sich einer Bestandsaufnahme der gegenwärtigen Situation von Frauen in Kunst und Kultur in deutschsprachigen Ländern, denn: Über 100 Jahre nach Einführung des Frauenwahlrechts in Österreich und Deutschland, über 70 Jahre nach der Verabschiedung von Artikel 3 des bundesrepublikanischen Grundgesetzes zur Gleichberechtigung der Geschlechter und über zwei Jahre nach Beginn der internationalen #MeToo-Bewegung ist der Kulturbetrieb immer noch diskriminierend – auf ganz unterschiedliche Weise und in den unterschiedlichsten Bereichen wie z.B. in der Musik, ob in der Klassik oder im Rock, in der Literatur oder im Film.

Um die Situation von Frauen im Radio genauer unter die Lupe zu nehmen, war ich als Medienwissenschaftlerin, u.a. mit Forschungsschwerpunkt zu Gender und Medien, im Rahmen des Thementages eingeladen, den Eröffnungsvortrag zum Bechdel-Test im Hörspiel zu halten. Ausserdem nahm ich an der darauffolgenden Podiumsdiskussion mit der feministischen Linguistin Luise F. Pusch, der Genderforscherin Sabine Hark, der Islamwissenschaftlerin Lamya Kaddor, der feministischen Autorin Stefanie Lohaus und der Journalistin Hilde Weeg teil. Im Anschluss daran teilten sich die Diskutantinnen und das Publikum in drei Arbeitsgruppen auf. Ihre Ziele: Unterschiedliche Postulate formulieren, mit deren Hilfe die Situation von Frauen in Kunst und Kultur verbessert werden kann. Eine Dokumentation des Zusammentragens der Ergebnisse ist hier zu hören.

Inzwischen wurden unsere kollektiven Forderungen unter dem Titel „Die Karlsruher Postulate für Gleichberechtigung in Kunst und Kultur“ auch online veröffentlicht. Die Schriftstellerin Tanja Dückers hat ihre Sicht der Situation von Frauen im Kulturbetrieb und ihre Unterstützung der Initiative im Interview erklärt und auch die Redaktion Hörspiel und Medienkunst des Bayerischen Rundfunks hat sich zu den Karlsruher Postulaten bekannt. Für den SWR hat Wolfram Wessels mich zur Situation von Frauen in Kunst und Kultur, insbesondere im Hörspiel, und zu den Karlsruher Postulaten interviewt. Das Interview kann hier angehört werden.

Nachtrag 3. März 2020: Heute wurde im Hörspielmagazin des Deutschlandfunks ein Beitrag von Sarah Murrenhoff zu den Karlruher Postulaten gesendet. Dafür hat die Autorin Martina Müller-Walraff, Leiterin des WDR-Hörspiels, und mich befragt. Nachgehört und -gelesen werden kann der Beitrag hier.

Und darum geht in den Karlsruher Postulaten ganz konkret:

Bechdel-Test for Radio Play

On Nov. 9th at the ARD Hörspieltage in Karlsruhe (GER) I gave a lecture on the Bechdel Test with a special focus on radio plays and about the limitations of the Bechdel test . My presentation was the start of a special theme day looking at the situation of women in cultural institutions two years after the kick-off of the #MeToo movement. After the presentation I participated in a panel discussion with Sabine Hark, Lamya Kaddor, Stefanie Lohaus, Luise F. Pusch und Hilde Weeg. This discussion led to three workshops, which resulted in the „Karlsruher Postulate“ – our demands and commitments how to bring real gender equality along – eventually. For documentation of the special theme day in German see here.

To Hear the Gras Grow – A Climate Activism Podcast

When I designed my podcasting course „Gras wachsen hören“ (or „To Hear the Grass Grow“) at the department of Media Ecology at the University of Potsdam in Germany, I had actually planned to teach my students about John Cage and musical collaborations between humans and fungi, and then go on to do some tricky recordings with them. However, Fridays for Future and the thousands of students striking worldwide each week to stop climate change did not make my students all that interested in aesthetic research, as I had to learn.

Fridays for Future Demonstration on July 19, 2019, in Berlin, Germany. Photo: © maxiwittek.de

Deeply impressed by Greta Thunberg and her committed, inspiring fight for immediate changes in climate policy, the end of fossil fuels, and the reduction of net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2035, the participants in my course preferred to make something more concrete. So we decided to produce a climate-activism podcast. This decision coincided with Thunberg’s visit to Berlin and her support of the local Fridays for Future demonstration on Friday, July 19.

Weiterlesen

Russian Avant-Garde on the Radio

It’s my great pleasure to announce the return or the Russian avant-garde, at least on air and online – unfortunately only in German, though: Today, Friday April 20 my feature “Die Medienkunst der russischen Avantgarde” will be broadcast. Therefore I had the great pleasure to talk to some terrific researchers and experts on Russian art, media and cultural history: Siegfried Zielinski, Berlin based media-archaeologist and theoretician, Sylvia Sasse, professor for Slavic literary studies at the University of Zurich, the historian and musicologist Boris Belge (Basel) and the Chlebnikov expert Andrea Hacker (Bern).

Some of the Russian Kubo-Futurists, around 1912

The reason for this radio show is the broadcasting of Andreas Ammer’s and FM Einheit’s terrific interpretation of Arseny Avraamov’s „Symphony of Sirens“, the loudest composition in music history, which was staged October 2017 in Brno, Czech Republic. Last Friday a recording of this unique performance has been broadcast by the radio drama department of Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), which is still available on its website in different mixes: A binaural mix for headphones, a 5.1 mix and a documentary film of the performance in Brno.

Weiterlesen

Interviews on Art, Technology & Feminism

From this week on my radio interview series „Art, Technology, Feminism“ will be broadcast again within hör!spiel!art.mix at Bayern2. It was a great pleasure and experience to speak to four such inspring female artists and scientists. Afterwards the interview with VALIE EXPORT, the interview with Ute Holl, the interview with Cornelia Sollfrank and the interview with Silke Wenk will be available as podcasts in German.

Photo credits in order of slide show:

VALIE EXPORT CC BY-SA 3.0 Manfred Werner, Ute Holl © Andreas Zimmermann, Cornelia Sollfrank CC BY-SA 3.0 Cornelia Sollfrank, Silke Wenk © Eva-Maria Evers.

A Revelation: Alan Macfarlane On Writing

I have written all my life: articles, features, essays, diaries, letters, columns, seminar papers, speeches, lectures. I have experienced writing as burden and as bliss. Writing never stopped to fascinate me. Still I felt unsatisfied with my way of writing. Most of the time I have written for money as I used to work as a journalist since my teenage years. This is certainly not the worst reason. But I always had this other longing. I wanted to experience a different kind of wirting and yet not a  poetic, fictional one. I was looking and longing for way of writing about the world, about so-called „reality“ as well as about art I neither learned at school for journalism nor at university, especially not at German university. Eventually today a friend of mine drew my attention to this interview on writing with the British anthropologist Alan Macfarlane.

Weiterlesen

Radio portrait of Miranda July

On Sunday night, the 3rd of April at 10.05 pm my one-hour long radio feature „Wir und sie und alle die wir kennen. Die kalifornische Konzeptkünstlerin Miranda July im Portrait“ will be boradcast in German at Zündfunk Generator on Bayern2 (afterwards available as podcast). Based on my November 2015 interview with Miranda July and my interview with the scholar Antje Czudaj, who wrote a book on July’s intermedial art, I am analyzing her work in a wider context. In this portrait I am looking at Miranda July’s background in 1990s Riot Grrlism in Portland, Oregon and at her own art work alike: I will talk about her short stories and her debut novel, her films and her media art pieces. Especially I will focus on the interactive and webbased project „Learning to Love You More“ (together with Harrell Fletscher, 2002 – 2009) and her latest intermedial art work „Somebody“, a combination of an app and a wonderful short film, which the fashion label Miu Miu of Prada helped her to realize.Thus I strive to unravel her artistic concept and claim that Miranda July should be regarded as one of the most interesting artistic voices of the current generation.

Tribunal & Clouds: GLOBALE @ ZKM

The  Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) Karlsruhe has opened again after several months of restoration. Within the next 300 days the festival GLOBALE will take place in the former ordnance factory: Many different exhibitions and symposia around the two main topics Infosphere and Exo-Evolution are in the making.

Real Cloud of Exo-Evolution by Transsolar - Foto: Harald Völkl, © ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie

Real Cloud of Exo-Evolution by Transsolar – Foto: Harald Völkl, © ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie

The guided tour through the two clouds – symbolizing Infosphere and Exo-Evolution – which Peter Weibel, manager of the ZKM and media artist, gave to me in advance for Deutschlandradio Kultur can be found here.

Peter Weibel, Vorstand und künstlerischer Leiter des ZKM © ZKM | Karlsruhe, 2014 Foto: Andy Ridder

Peter Weibel, manger and artistic director of  ZKM © ZKM | Karlsruhe, 2014 – Foto: Andy Ridder

Weiterlesen