Mutual Radio Horizon
An intervention in public space for Somaphon festival, Weimar, Germany, in collaboration with AWOL collective.
In August 2025, we were invited by Somaphon Festival for Body, Sound and City Interactions to devise a performance or public-space intervention. Our work, Mutual Radio Horizon, took the form of a participatory listening performance. In collaboration with the Weimar-based collective Absent Without Leave (AWOL), we activated a choreography of transmitters, receivers, and human bodies. Working from an open score, local soundscapes were woven into a mesh of micro-transmissions. Equipped with portable radios, audience members moved through overlapping signal zones, generating a spatially and sonically immersive terrain.
At the centre of the work were two compositions responding to the idea of the radio beacon: a fixed transmitter that emits signals for navigation. Drawing on the shifting, sometimes melodic tones of beacon signals, we developed two new pieces—one by Shortwave Collective and one by AWOL. These were broadcast from transmitters positioned at opposite ends of the field and captured by a roving microphone carried by an on-site member of Shortwave Collective. The audio was relayed to collective members in Bulgaria, France, Greece, and the UK, who responded in real time through live performance. Their sonic contributions were then transmitted back into the park via mobile transmitters carried by AWOL members and Somaphon staff, who moved slowly across the field.
Audiences tuning in on portable radios could navigate between two static beacon broadcasts and four roving live transmissions, encountering continually shifting sonic relationships as they moved through the space.
At the centre of the work were two compositions responding to the idea of the radio beacon: a fixed transmitter that emits signals for navigation. Drawing on the shifting, sometimes melodic tones of beacon signals, we developed two new pieces—one by Shortwave Collective and one by AWOL. These were broadcast from transmitters positioned at opposite ends of the field and captured by a roving microphone carried by an on-site member of Shortwave Collective. The audio was relayed to collective members in Bulgaria, France, Greece, and the UK, who responded in real time through live performance. Their sonic contributions were then transmitted back into the park via mobile transmitters carried by AWOL members and Somaphon staff, who moved slowly across the field.
Audiences tuning in on portable radios could navigate between two static beacon broadcasts and four roving live transmissions, encountering continually shifting sonic relationships as they moved through the space.
Photo Credits: Peechana Chayochaichana
Location: Eigenheim Weimar
Host: SOMAPHON FESTIVAL
Location: Eigenheim Weimar
Host: SOMAPHON FESTIVAL