Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio

by Daniel Gilfillan

Overview

A cultural history of German radio broadcasting from the 1920s to today

Since the rise of film and television, radio has continued to evolve, with satellite radio and podcasts as its latest incarnations. Any understanding of the development of radio, like its visual counterparts, depends on closely examining the artistic ventures that preceded commercial acceptance.

In Pieces of Sound, Daniel Gilfillan offers a cultural history that explores these major aspects of the medium by focusing on German radio broadcasting, providing a context that sees beyond programming to consider regulations, cultural politics, and social standardization. Gilfillan showcases the work of radio pioneers and artists over the past century, including Brecht’s work with the form, and how radio was employed before and after World War II. He traces how German radio broadcasters experimented with networked media not only to expand the artistic and communicative possibilities of radio, but also to inform perceptions about the advantages and direction of newer telecommunications media like Internet broadcasting and pirate radio, which artists are using today to engage with a medium that is increasingly under corporate control.

Gilfillan astutely observes how claims made for the Internet today echo those made for radio in its infancy and puts forth a broad and incisive historical analysis of German cultural broadcasting.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816647729
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	05/13/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Daniel Gilfillan is associate professor of German studies and information literacy at Arizona State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xii

Introduction xiii

1 Wiretapping the Beast: Radio, Hyperspatiality, and a New Network for Art 1

2 Between Military Innovation and Government Sanction: Early German Radio and the Experimental 22

3 Don't Touch That Dial: Transmitting Modes of Experimentation from Weimar to Postwar West Germany 87

4 Opening the Radio Up: Tactical Media and Alternative Networks 114

Coda: The Longevity of Radio and the Impermanence of Sound 164

Notes 171

Index 203