Schlafradio (1993)

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Schlafradio [Sleep Radio] is a series for clock radio.

 
Schlafradio [Sleep Radio] is an experiment to bring radio Art into a realm far from attentive perception.
Many People use their clock radio to lull themselves to sleep. The same appliance fulfils two opposite functions: To lull to sleep and to awake - even if set to the same loudness and the same channel. Which function is to be fulfiled depends only on the fact who - Human or Radio - is active first.
Human switches Radio on - Radio switches Human off. Radio switches Human on - Human switches Radio off.
Sleep Radio works like a ritual and such is has to deliver certain repeating patterns and it must be presented frequently, as a series. A given basic setting can be recombinated and extended deliberately - and the game gets better when listeners become able to participate in it.
Following my first broadcast, several composers joined in contributing to the series. They all agreed to re-use sounds of previous broadcasts and to release their own compositions to be reprocessed in the next pieces.
It was my intention to build a database of sounds for free use and maybe even for automated generative recombination of further Schlafradio pieces.
At the time this was not yet possible on the Internet - but it would have been the ideal platform for such a project. For now, I decided to put the pieces online here.