On 11 December midnight, meLê yamomo’s Hörstück entitled “Interferences – Colonial Failures in Radio” will premiere on Deutschlandfunk Kultur.
“Interferenzen – Koloniales Scheitern im Radio” is a piece about failure.
The Philips company broadcast the first radio programs in the Dutch East Indies in 1927. A little later, the French founded their radio stations in Indochina and the British started the BBC’s Empire Service.
It wasn’t long before the local population followed suit. Sultan Mangkunegaran VII of Solo in Java financed the Solo Radio Company, which from 1933 broadcasted in the Javanese language and transmitted traditional music from Java. With wireless signals never stopping at any border, the various colonies in Southeast Asia soon heard the popular music and anti-colonial voices of their neighbors.
meLê yamomo samples recordings of historical radio broadcasts from Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Asia. One can hear how global modernity and colonization stumble over the same mistakes over and over again.
“Interferenzen” features Sonic Entanglements partners, Elizabeth Enriquez, Vincent Kuitenbrouwer, and Teilhard Paradela.
This production is produced by Deutschlandfunk Kultur / Elektronisches Studio der Akademie der Künste Berlin.
You can listen and download the audio file on webpage of Deutschlandfunk Kultur.