Now in its fifth year, the CTM 2018 Radio Lab is dedicated to exploration and experimentation with the hybrid possibilities of combining the medium of radio with live performance. This year, the Lab will host one winning project commissioned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Radio Art/Klangkunst and CTM Festival, in collaboration with ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst festival, Ö1 Kunstradio, and the British music magazine The Wire.

This year’s winner, Ahmed El Ghazoly aka ZULI, is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and sound artist from Cairo, Egypt. He is co-founder of Kairo is Koming (KIK), a collective of six artists that played an important role in the rise of the city’s underground electronic music scene. Together with Asem Tag ($$$TAG$$$), ZULI also co-headed Cairo’s alternative music venue and club, VENT, from 2013-2015, before transforming their project into a namesake club night and festival. Around the same time, VENT London was run at the now closed Dance Tunnel venue by a third partner, Mohamed Elshourbagui.

ZULI released his debut EP, Bionic Ahmed, with Lee Gamble’s UIQ label, following up with another playfully unconventional release, Numbers. He held a residency at the prestigious EMS Stockholm in between both releases.

In his Radio Lab project, El Ghazoly proposes to compose diverse vignettes of life in Cairo, a grossly overpopulated city suffering political unrest over many years. In the artists word’s the city has “a feeling of a volcano on the verge of erupting but never actually does.” Having steadily recorded his surroundings over many years, ZULI proposes a series of vignettes that incorporate conversations held for example with taxi drivers, merchants, commuters at the railway station or metro, as well as his own original music compositions. At CTM 2018, festival goers will be able to enter into a circle of screens projecting 360 videos shot on location where the interviews and sound collages are sourced, immersing themselves into the city’s turbulent environment. They’ll also be able to check out a specially-constructed website that will assemble the videos which will be projected in the installation, and also provide additional information and links.

"Great to see Ahmed Elghazoly aka ZULI as one of the applicants for this year's Radio Lab call. Recent works of his have made for fascinating and sonically engaging listen. His proposed method of using field recordings, everyday conversations and video footage to provide an insight into the turmoil experienced in Egypt during 2017 is a simple yet powerful idea. I can't wait to see the project take form as both an installation at CTM 2018 and as a radio piece." – Daisy Hyde, The Wire

The CTM 2018 Radio Lab Open Call for works sought unusual ideas for pairing the specific artistic possibilities of radio with the potentials of live performance or installation, that also explore the CTM 2018 Festival theme: Turmoil. The selected work will premiere at CTM 2018, and subsequently be broadcast via Deutschlanfunk Kultur in March 2018. Later in Autumn 2018, these works will be presented by the ORF (Austrian National Broadcasting Corporation) via one of their platforms.

In collaboration with Deutschlandfunk Kultur Hörspiel / Klangkunst, ORF Ö1 Kunstradio, ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst, and supported by media partner The Wire, and Goethe-Institut.