Show 977: CONTINUUM (Usmaradio)

CONTINUUM
collaborative network radio performance

TACTUS Radio Festival
Republic of San Marino and worldwide
2.12.2023

CONTINUUM a collaborative radio performance conceived by Roberto Paci Dalò for TACTUS Radio Festival on the 2nd of December 2023 between 19:00 and 20:00 CET, it was broadcast on Usmaradio together with a global network of radio stations.

The challenge was to work on radical improvisation without any conduction and prior rules, giving a maximum of freedom to the participants. Most of the artists, performing from different locations, didn’t know each other and actually never talked to each other before the performance. Obviously the key of the project was an extreme attention during the performance from any single artist: “the art of listening” with 18 people performing together on-site in the Republic of San Marino and remotely from the USA, Germany, and Austria.

The result was surprising: a subtle texture of sounds with an amazing quantity of moments of silence despite the massive use of live electronics. The performance somehow proved that the planned lack of conduction can be balanced by the level of attention and involvement from the performers. It was a mesmerizing immersion in an acoustical world where electronics graciously merged with acoustical instruments and voices; a nocturnal winterreise across galaxies.

CONTINUUM intended to develop the praxis of the “telematic performance” which developed in the beginning of the 1990s. Especially around activators such as the programme ORF Kunstradio in Austria, the Ars Electronica Festival and L’Arte dell’Ascolto radio festival, seminal projects such as Cheap Radio, Horizontal Radio, Rivers&Bridges, and Realtime, designed an innovative use of telecommunication technologies including the nascent Internet in conjunction with the broadcast and telephone networks. The artist Robert Adrian was one of the major inspirations for many artists in the field.

The arrival of the Internet obviously greatly expanded the possibilities for global interaction between artists who could now participate from their personal spaces and with minimal need for financial support. But at the same time this provoked national broadcasting corporations to step back and reduce their involvement in such experimental projects. Let’s think of the infrastructure, technologies and the great professionals working in radio stations. The role of the engineers and their inspiring relationship with the artists has always been crucially important in such projects.
CONTINUUM wanted to link these practices from the past by bringing together both independent and broadcasting corporations in order to act in our present and investigate the possibilities of today’s technologies. À suivre…

Continuum
Idea: Roberto Paci Dalò
Station manager and general coordination: Alessandro Renzi
Mixing board: Lorenzo Ricci
Post-production and mastering: Alessandro Renzi

Live performers:
From the Republic of San Marino:
Gaia Ginevra Giorgi, L’Impero della Luce, NicoNote, Roberto Paci Dalò, Tobia Bandini, Vittoria Assembri

From Santa Cruz, California:
Anna Friz

From Vienna:
alien productions (Andrea Sodomka and Robert Math)

From Weimar:
Bauhaus Radio Ensemble (Tilman Böhnke, Fritzi Buhtz, Adrian Ciesielski, Lefteris Krysalis, Finn Röhmer-Litzmann, João Afonso Soares Leiria Parreira Ticão, Amir Shokati, Karlotta Sperling)

Broadcasted live on:
Usmaradio, San Marino RTV, bauhaus.fm (Weimar), Wave Farm (New York’s Upper Hudson Valley), ARTxFM / WXOX 97.1 FM  (Louisville, Kentucky), Beware The Radio (United Kingdom), Radio Tsonami (Chile), diffusion FM (Australia), Radio Bloc ORAL (Canada) and in Italy: Fango Radio, Radio Raheem, and NEU Radio.

CONTINUUM has been heard globally through streaming, satellite (Eutelsat Hotbird 13B, channels 520, 93) and Digitale Terrestre 831 (Italy) with the collaboration of San Marino RTV (the National Broadcasting Corporation of the Republic of San Marino)
In Europe and the USA has been heard locally via FM:
bauhaus.fm UKW 106.6 MHz (Weimar), Republic of San Marino RTV 98.90 MHz (Romagna/Marche), WGXC 90.7-FM (New York’s Upper Hudson Valley), ARTxFM / WXOX 97.1 FM (Louisville, Kentucky)

TACTUS Radio Festival
Republic of San Marino, 1-3 December 2023

TACTUS Radio Festival is an international Radio Art project promoted by Usmaradio. Within the spaces of the Antico Monastero Santa Chiara, the festival offered three days of art of listening open to the public: narrations, round tables, performances, listening, live radio broadcasts and podcasts.

Artistic direction: Roberto Paci Dalò
Curatorial team: Gianni Gozzoli, Roberto Paci Dalò, Alessandro Renzi
General coordination: Alessandro Renzi
Head of production and organization: Anna Guerra
Communication: Sara Seu, Maria Chiara Romano
Graphic design: Davide Di Gennaro (Tomo Tomo)
Collaboration to the graphic design: Sara Seu
Mixing board: Lorenzo Ricci
Journal: Natalia Soldati
Documentation photographs and video: Emanuele Lumini
Press office: Jeffrey Zani
Setting-up spaces: CoseMatte (Alessio Abdolahian, Matteo Giustozzi, Orsetta Rocchetto)
Hosting: Natalia Soldati, Rebecca Rizzo
Website: Alessandro Renzi

A project of Usmaradio – Research Centre for Radiophonic Studies
Production: Università degli Studi della Repubblica di San Marino
Support: Segreteria di Stato alla Cultura della Repubblica di San Marino, Transcultures/City Sonic 20 years and Pépinières Européennes de Création
Patronage: Segreteria di Stato per l’Istruzione e la Cultura, l’Università e la Ricerca Scientifica, le Politiche Giovanili; Segreteria di Stato per il Turismo, le Poste, la Cooperazione ed Expo
Partners: Experimentelles Radio an der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, ORF Kunstradio, RaiPlay Sound, RTV San Marino, Giardini Pensili, Sentire le voci – festa del podcast, Wave Farm, Congerie, Smagliature Urbane, Radia, Arci Servizio Civile Rimini APS, Farmhouse Rimini, CUE Press, Tempo Reale, Radio Papesse, Fango Radio, Neu Radio, Radioimmaginaria, Radio Raheem, ARTxFM / WXOX 97.1 FM, Radio Tsonami, Beware The Radio, Transcultures/City Sonic 20 years and Pépinières Européennes de Création, Radio Campus Paris 93.9 FM, diffusionFM, Radio Bloc ORAL
Media partners: Altre Velocità, Gagarin Orbite Culturali

Sound Exhibition:
Morse Mountain (2022)
Absolute Value of Noise and Anna Friz
A generative radio art piece
Transmitting on radiolada.net from the 1st December 2023
Visit: usmaradio.org/tactusfestival

Pictures by Emanuele Lumini

Usmaradio – Centro di Ricerca Interdipartimentale per la Radiofonia (CRIR) / Interdepartmental Research Centre for Radio Studies, is a workplace of The School of Radio to develop an innovative radio pedagogy. Workshops, work sessions, meetings, presentations of live performance as sections of the project. Produced by UNIRSM | Università degli Studi della Repubblica di San Marino. usmaradio.org / theschoolofradio.org / unirsm.sm