Claudia Wegener
(alias, radio continental drift), a London-based sound and media artist organising collective radio projects (such as the No-Go-Zones audio radio project; collaboratively with Terry Humphrey, funded by Arts Council England, TrAIN, and Southwark Council; www.nogozones.wordpress.com); Associate member of Transnational Arts Identity and Nation Research Centre (TrAIN) at University of the Arts London www.camberwell.arts.ac.uk; currently a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) www.ukzn.ac.za; organising and facilitating the DURBAN SINGS audio media and oral history project www.durbansings.wordpress.com collaboratively with Molefi Mafereka Ndlovu, funded by Rosa Luxemburg Foundation; recent work includes LONG WALK, a radio play commissioned by Studio for Acoustic Arts WDR3 Cologne (broadcast October 2009) www.wdr3.de; and a contribution to sound art magazine www.vibrofiles.com for vibrö No.5; The Plastic People Issue, released by Double Entendre June 2009.
DURBAN SINGS rough radio" (13:33)
presents a juxtaposition of two re-mixes: one, like a preface and audio-active analysis, mixed from a 45 mins SABC talk show announced as ‚The Reunion‘, and ‚a historic gathering of leading negotiators who helped to secure the end of Apartheid in SA‘; the other, a re-mix from the open on-line archive of the DURBAN SINGS audio media and oral history project at www.durbansings.wordpress.com. The piece speaks and sings, in a cluster of voices and languages for a switch to another sound of radio, and another sound of history for that matter; and it performs the switch – however rough it may be. The struggle for freedom of the African people is not over with the end of Apartheid in SA. It’s on-going and making history here and now; whether this history enters the sound proof walls of SABC and the likes, or not.
DURBAN SINGS is a regional audio media and oral history project, an outreach initiative of the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) www.ukzn.ac.za; and a sound network joining hemispheres via audio correspondence between listeners; building a listening bridge between communities, artists and activist groups in KZN and the rest of the world.
radio continental drift
website: www.radiocontinentaldrift.wordpress.com