PROJECTS | CRK

CLUB RADIOKOJE

German

CLUB RADIOKOJE continues the history of regular public and cultural events at Kongreßbad that have taken place continuously from 1928 until 1987. This tradition stopped when international holiday destinations became more and more affordable and replaced the public pool as a regional recreation and meeting facility.

In the context of music history, CLUB RADIOKOJE references the genre of Water Musics and the liquid experiments carried out by the twentieth century’s avant-garde. We continue to challenge and transform music’s form by processes that liquify and warp it. We aim to emancipate the artistic impulses of artists and audiences, by relocating pieces that are usually performed in concert halls and engaging the public with perhaps unexpected artistic interventions.

MORE ON THE HISTORY OF KONGREßBAD: #radioresistance

SONIC WATERS

Music history presents plenty of examples that reflect the swimming pool as a performance space, and water as a means for composition. French composer Michel Redolfi, for example, has explored possibilities in underwater music concerts and compositions since the 1980s. Several musicians—most prominently John Cage’s Water Music (1952) or Yoko Ono‘s We Are All Water (1972/2006)—reference the element, but also aspects that reflect the actual culture of bathing. Artistic interventions by and in the water carry on in this tradition. The pool as a recreation area, and social meeting and mating point is also an attractive dance location. czirp czirp explores all these possibilities and develops its music program by the pool with artists and swimmers.

OPEN CALL 2020

Our annual event, CLUB RADIOKOJE, is open to innovative project proposals from composers and musicians in contemporary music—and beyond. WE HAVE RECEIVED exciting site-specific concepts; ideas reflecting the history and cultural aspects of the bath and bathing; experimental approaches aiming to liquify the experience of sound; music compositions from the genre of (under)water music; speculative and wet dreams dealing with the underwater world as an ecological habitat; narratives of immersion and flow. These works will be showcased in 2022 and 2023.

POST-COVID-19

Limited access to public pools and the suspension of larger events in the post-pandemic age have created opportunities to expand our curatorial framework into the digital realm.

2020: CLUB RADIOKOJE virtual with a 3D model of the historic swimming pool.

2021: OCEANIC FEELING as a sounding stream of becoming liquified subjects.

2022: MEDIA AND SOUND POOL as a series of AR sound works (artificialmuseum.com).

2023: HOLDING BREATH

This project is realized in cooperation with IGNM – International Association for New Music Vienna and MA44 – Städtische Bäder Wiens.

Supported by the City Council of Vienna MA7 Kultur, SKE Austromechana, BMKÖS and the Head of District Franz Prokop (Ottakring).