Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio »

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

Since the rise of film and television, radio has continued to evolve, with satellite radio and podeasts 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. 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. Gilfillan 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.

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