You are listening to a multilogue of recorded messages, a conversation that is many-to-many, yet one-way. By artificially (re)constructing a conversation that never really took place, this edition of ABA’s Air Salon is referring to a contemporary phenomenon you might recognize: sending voice messages back and forth instead of having a conversation – sometimes long monologues that don’t expect an answer, sometimes exchanging multiple 3 second snippets instead of just giving the other a call. As a contemporary form, the voice message and its ever-growing popularity might hold some relevance for collective practices and how they often (dis)function: a lot of sending and receiving, conflating multiple channels, to eventually (and hopefully) end up having a conversation that matters, but never speaking with one [removed];
soft power is a collectively run non-profit art association and venue for artistic projects that combines curatorial, artistic, sociological and design approaches in an ongoing engagement with the structural realities and political conditions of (collective) practices. In our voice messages, we are asking questions about collective work, its ups and downs, its potential for dividing efforts and multiplying outcomes (sometimes the other way around), and the alternatives it may pose to the way that art is produced and consumed. We sent our questions to other Berlin-based collectives or collectively organised projects, and received some voice messages in return – joining us with their Voice messages for the collective ear are:
Alicia Reuter, co-founder and co-director of the Berlin Art Prize
Anissa Carrington, co-founder and member of the DJ network SLIC Unit
Viviane Tabach & Theseas Efstathopoulos, two sobat-sobat (documenta fifteen’s group of art mediators) and editors of the publication Ever Been Friendzoned by an Institution?.
Tra My Nguyen, co-founder and member of the design collective Studio ABO
ABA’s Air Salon presents the work of contemporary visual artists on the radio. Every third Tuesday of the month from 4-5pm on fr-bb Freies Radio – Berlin Brandenburg on CoLabRadio [removed] in Berlin, [removed] MHz in Potsdam. You can listen at home, on the radio or online.
AIR Berlin Residency: Neige Sanchez from September 2022–Feb 2023, Switzerland Matheline Marmy from September 2022–Feb 2023, Switzerland Machiel van Stokkum from September–December 2022, Netherlands