„Radio art is an expression of wireless relationships between people and things, utilizing the electro-magnetic spectrum as the primary material for artistic investigation.” [Anna Friz]

With the project Cyborg Radiation Day the esc medien kunst labor opens its programme year 2020 You are cyborg - aren't you?. We warmly invite you to listen in to our Art’s Birthday programe live broadcast on Radio Helsinki 92.6FM, Ö1 Kunstradio and EBU-Satellite network.

Art's Birthday is an annual event first proposed in 1963 by French artist Robert Filliou.

He suggested that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no art. But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born. According to Filliou, it happened when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Modest beginnings, but look at us now.

Filliou proposed a public holiday to celebrate the presence of art in our lives. In recent years, the idea has been taken up by a loose network of artists and friends around the world. Each year the Eternal Network evolves to include new partners - working with the ideas of exchange and telecommunications-art.

Artists have celebrated Art's Birthday with lavish parties and gatherings, correspondence and mailart, and through Telematic networks using SloScan TV, Videophones, music composed for telephone lines, modem-to-modem MIDI connections, early bulletin board and chat systems, and (starting in the mid 1990's) the Internet.

The ball of lightning stands as a symbol for the electric moment of origin of wireless communication and as a moment that makes the autonomy and materiality of the device visible and audible: this is the theme explored by sound artist Raviv Ganchrow in his radio piece Knallfunken. The acoustic material for Ganchrow's work is electrical discharges of lightning in radio networks that are made audible and combined into a sound collage of breathtaking acoustic diversity. Peter Courtemanche's sound installation solar radio also investigates this theme, but from another side: a small self-contained transmission and reception unit 'eavesdrops' on its surroundings, and an algorithm uses detection patterns based on machine learning to generate an artificial sound collage from the perceived sounds, which is transmitted as an audio stream. The solar radio is active as long as the device is supplied with sunshine and so with electricity; for the Graz Cyborg Radiation Day, Peter Courtemanche makes an exception and connects Solar Radio to the electricity grid, so that we can be sure to hear it. The radioperformance Changes of State by Anna Friz refers to the new piece SALAR : EVAPORATION that she developed together with Rodrigo Ríos Zunino, based on audio and video recordings they gathered in the mines of cupper, lithium and rare earths in the north of Chile; raw materials used in the production of smartphones and batteries of all kinds. Field recordings taken in the Atacama desert are central acoustic material for her radio piece.

18.00 Uhr:

URBAN CYBORGS, Opening and greeting words by Reni Hofmüller and Ilse Weber, presentation of the project URBAN CYBORGS and start of radio transmission including Radio Cyborg Transmitter RCT

18.30 Uhr:

Presents to art, Onlinearchive Ö1 Kunstradio, Moderation: Reni Hofmüller

19.00 Uhr:

Salar: Evaporation, Lecture by Anna Friz

20.00 Uhr:

Solar Radio, Absolute Value of Noise, live from Vancouver, Canada

20.30 Uhr:

Spark Gap, Raviv Ganchrow, Preproduction Deutschlandfunk

21.15 Uhr:

The sound of artspace, Seppo Gründler live in Graz, then: Presents to art, Onlinearchive Ö1 Kunstradio, Moderation: Reni Hofmüller

21.40 Uhr:

Changes of State, Anna Friz, Radioperformance, live from Graz

22.00 Uhr:

Die Loslösung des Plans, Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, live from Graz

22.30 Uhr:

Embodied Radio Device, Absolute Value of Noise and Anna Friz

22.50 Uhr:

30 Minutes of SDR, Enrique Tomas, live from Linz, in collaboration with Dorf TV Linz

23.20 Uhr:

denn jede Variable stellt eine konstante Form dar, Adina Camhy, Bettina Landl & Peter Venus; Presents to art, Onlinearchive RADIA, Moderation: Reni Hofmüller