Radia #992 - Resonating Scultpures by Reni Hofmüller

Members of Radia, the international group of independent cultural radio stations, explore new and forgotten ways of making radio.

This episode is contribution by Radio Helsinki

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration" ––– Nikola Tesla

Sounds of electromagnetic waves, overlapping frequencies of unfathomable spaces - magical, fleeting and touching, these are the electro-poetic worlds of sound that Reni Hofmüller opens up with the antennas of her Resonating Sculptures. Radiation emissions from the natural and human-made world, the cosmos and the technological environment transformed into sounds: hissing, crackling, hissing, whistling, vibrating, clanking and clicking, humming, buzzing, vibrating and booming, voices, tones and sounds from the radio.

Since 2012, the media artist, musician, composer, organiser and activist has been working with communication spaces that are created and characterised through the use of antennas and interpreted musically and improvisationally in live sets. The sculptures are mobile, small, heavy, expansive, they reference places and spaces for which they were designed, and they each have their own history of creation.

These are reflected in the forms as well as the spectrum of what they receive. Eight Resonating Sculptures have been created over the past eleven years. In April 2024, a new series of antennas based on the water systems – rivers, drinking water canals and sewage – will open in Scala, Tabakalera, San Sebastian.

As early as the end of the 19th century, Nikola Tesla picked up signals from Jupiter during his first radio experiments and interpreted them using his imagination. The Resonating Sculptures appeal to this power of imagination in the same way as the blue of the deep when diving in the sea or the noise of the radio between the transmitters that suggest a potential, a maybe, a possibly. Hofmüller: "The world opens up for me from my world of sound."