Multimedia essay, five parts, total duration: 30:20 min., 2023
From 1926 on, a multitude of women wrote about their activities as radio producers. One such article from Berlin boasts the radical title: Ich spreche Funk.
As part of workers’ radio clubs in Berlin, women’s groups were established, sharing knowledge and tools for building amateur radio receivers and transmitters. DIY fanatics would listen to the radio at these clubs, using their own equipment – perhaps just for the pleasure of experimenting with technology. Bromley retraces their presence through visual and auditory constellations of archival material.
Framed drawing on pigment print, color pigment pencil, pigments, 61 x 62 cm; framed customers’ newsletter of Radio Arlt & Co. KG, Berlin Charlottenburg, a historic electronics catalog, ca. 1930, 22 x 15 cm; archival folder on wooden table, containing a glazed pigment print on baryta, 30 x 25.4 cm; a heliograph, 22 x 14 cm; open book by Walter Benjamin, Aufklärung für Kinder: Rundfunkvorträge, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985; 6-part audio essay: part A: 3:24 min., part B: 2:57 min., part C: 4:31 min., part D: 3:55 min., part E: 2:21 min., part F: 13:12 min., including electronically modified archival recordings of Martha Arendsee (1928), Marie Arning (1928), Wilhelm Bendow and Franz-Otto Krüger (1926), Enrico Caruso (1902), Tilla Durieux (1927), as well as original audio recordings from 1918, 1924, 1925, and 1927.
Pigment prints: Termindruck Berlin. Heliogravure: Engraving print studio at the Kunstquartier Bethanien Berlin, Gloria Alonso. Frames: Kunst und Rahmen Alexandra Erlhoff. Voice recordings: Media workshop at the Kunstquartier-Bethanien Berlin, Manfred Miersch. Dramaturgy and sound editing: Michael Fesca. Concept, text, voice-overs, digital sound syntheses, and direction: Anna Bromley, 2023.
The work was commissioned for ZAK – Center for Contemporary Art’s exhibition “SKIN – Membrane, Organ, Archive,” 2023, curated by Katharina Koch (alpha nova & galerie futura) and Julie August (Frauenmuseum Berlin).
Images: Arne Reinhardt, courtesy of ZAK. Last image: Julia Lübbecke, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024.
AUDIO