kunstfunk / art radio:
project description
Kunstfunk was structured as two parallel and coordinated activities:

1. A daily slow scan television (SSTV) transmission and radio workshop.
2. A daily programme of performances and presentations by artists.

In the Vienna Secession Kunstfunk was organised as a low-tech television studio with the production studio in one room and the technical studio, just down a short corridor, in another. This allowed for two quite different groups of participants to experience the project according to their special interests but allowing ample opportunity for migration between the worlds of art and technology.

Each day, between 5 and 8 p.m., a programme of live performances, installations, projections and video plus recorded - digitally formatted (SSTV) - material was presented on site in the space and on air via short wave radio - and also via the Oscar 10 (amateur radio) satellite. For the satellite transmissions it was necessary to send the signal via VHF to a local amateur operator who relayed the material to Oscar 10 for world-wide coverage. Because Oscar 10 was very low on the horizon at the time of the project, the operator often had to record the material and wait for the satellite to come into view.

It was originally intended to use the satellite to include several artists' groups in North America and Australia but the technical and beaurocratic complexity made this too difficult - except for the DAX group in Pittsburg, U.S.A., who contributed to the project via the Oscar 10 satellite.

During the radio workshops both sending and receiving of SSTV signals via short wave was attempted and material was exchanged with amateur operators in North Africa and different parts of Europe.


Concept and administration: BLIX
Project coordination: Zelko Wiener
Art programme coordination: Helmut Mark
Technical coordination (Radio): Gerhard Taschler
Sound design: Karl Kubacek
Network coordination: Robert Adrian