re- radio by Karen Werner

re- radio is an artistic research PhD project about relationality in radio articulated through three durational artworks: SkottegatenFM (2021), a three-month mini-FM radio station based in my apartment and neighborhood; Radio Multe (2021-ongoing), an experimental city-wide AM, FM and online radio station with an accompanying shadow station and Seijo & her Soul (2024), a nine-evening performance installation in an art exhibition space. The project situates the artworks in the contexts of mini-FM and community radio practices, radio art, theories of relationality, relational aesthetics and dialogical aesthetics. I chart the move from broad questions, such as what is relationality? What is community? What is communication? to more specific realizations: that the radio station as an artistic form can foster an immersive, collective subjectivity that supports many forms of unlearning and learning with and that on-air conversation can be an artistic material. By shifting attention from senders and receivers to the spaces between them, on-air conversation as co-creation contributes to a relational ethics. re- radio also contributes to the field of artistic research regarding relational methodologies and the politics of knowledge.

< Documentation of Artistic works

Seijo & her Soul Participants

Acknowledgements

Seijo & her Soul involved the following collaborators and participants:

The Radio Multe Ensemble is Alan Ó Raghallaigh, André Mestre, Carol Stampone, Dinara
Yañgeldina, Feronia Wennborg, Karen Werner and Yimin Dong.

Poster and score design and illustrations are by Amy Franceschini.

The Seijo & her Soul zine is designed and risographed by Johanna Sevholt, who also painted the score on the wall of the installation.

Seijo & her Soul was workshopped at Bergen Kunsthall’s Live Studio. Ben Wenhou Yu of Bergen’s Northing Centre for East Asian Art and Culture and Yimin Dong provided context about the story.

Peppi Reenkola, Pauliina Pöllänen and Johanna Sevholt assisted with the installation. Øystein Ask revived old radios as lights.

Marianne Hallseth designed Radio Multe’s logo. Siavash Kheirkhah produced video and

photographic documentation.

Thank you Line Nord and Evy Sørensen at USF Visningsrommet and Bergen Kommune, Bergen Kringkaster and den uferdige institusjonen for supporting Radio Multe as an experimental community radio station.

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Karen Werner - re- radio - 2024