First of all, the above organizers would first like to thank everyone who took the time to submit their proposals, which totalled an impressive of 292 submissions from 49 different countries, and collectively addressed the call’s themes and challenges from a wide and interesting array of perspectives. The two final chosen proposals stood out in their approach of combining radio and live performance, as well as for their spirit of inclusiveness and collaboration. The experimental nature of both projects leaves much to the imagination, and we look forward to witnessing how they develop into their final presentations.

The first selected proposal, entitled The P.Node Project, comes from the French network of artists and hackers affiliated with projects such as Dorkbot, Le Placard, and Artkillart among others. Gathering international media artists and radio activists at the CTM Festival in Berlin and the musikprotokoll festival in Graz, the network proposes to produce an alternative Internet & radio hybrid broadcast system that explores and rethinks the radio format at the age of the Internet. The project’s open participation system also invites festival audiences/the general public to interact with radio emitters and transceivers hidden throughout various festival venues and locations, effectively using Berlin and Graz as checkerboards of a urban radio game. As explained by Susanna Niedermayr (ORF Ö1 / musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst): “P.Node creatively uses and presents a vast variety of different technologies and examines their interconnectivity, while questioning the role of radio itself. Both the strong cooperative character of the project and its openness provide the possibility to connect likeminded networks, bringing local artists in touch with likeminded artists from other countries.”

The second selected project, Walk That Sound, by Serbian artist Luka Ivanovic (alias Lukatoyboy), uses the commonplace yet often forgotten walkie-talkie to create a moving urban sound portrait. The project plays with the array of available and free frequencies, and the almost unlimited amount of users that can interact over these different channels, to capture crackling dialogues ranging from the banal to extremely urgent, as well as the multitude of sounds captured by chance while participants rove around the city as “mobile scouts”. “Luka Ivanovic proposes a unique way of coupling radio transmission and live performance by initiating an audio circuit with handheld walkie talkies. This basic radio technology incites an unusual artistic communication through and about sound.” - Marcus Gammel (Deutschlandradio Kultur)

These two works will be presented both as a Deutschlandradio Kultur and ORF Ö1 broadcast, as well as a program within the CTM Festival in Berlin (24.01.-02.02.2014), and the ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst festival in Graz (Autumn 2014).

The jury consisted of:

Marcus Gammel (Editor for sound art and radio drama Klangkunst/Hörspiel at Deutschlandradio Kultur)
Susanna Niedermayr (ORF Ö1 / musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst)
Jan Rohlf (Artistic & Managing Director, CTM Festival)
Patti Schmidt (Curator, MUTEK Festival)
Chris Bohn (Editor, The Wire)
Thomas Köner (Artist)