Bernhard Loibner & Tom Sherman aka Nerve Theory are participating in the Exhibition Über das Radio hinaus (Beyond Radio) – 25 Jahre Kunstradio-Radiokunst at the Research Centre for Artists’ Publications, Weserburg Museum for Modern Art, Bremen, Germany. The exhibition is running from November 10, 2012 until February 10, 2013.
The piece H5N1 which will be presented there is actually a series of short radio pieces we did for the radio program Kunstradio – Radiokunst in 2006. The series focused on the bird flu virus, H5N1, and the hysteria surrounding the inevitable global influenza pandemic. We used the idea of the evolving, mutating H5N1 virus as a launching pad for a series of statements about the world we live in. Imagine a world where artists write and deliver the news. Nerve Theory are not scientists, but they are experts in observing and describing media viruses and a whole spectrum of living, evolving ideas.
A selection of the 37 episodes of H5N1 will be part of an exhibition reviewing 25 years of the radio program “Kunstradio – Radiokunst” which is dedicated to radio art. Kunstradio is being broadcast on the austrian public radio ORF for 25 years and continues to be a unique forum for radio related art.
Kunstradio – Radiokunst is a weekly radio programme on Österreich 1 (the Austrian radio’s culture station). It’s first broadcast took place on 3rd December 1987. Right from the beginning, collaborations with international artists have been central to the work of Kunstradio. In cooperation with radio institutions, art associations, festivals or museums, Kunstradio regularly organizes projects developed by artists as well as facilitating exhibitions or encounters between artists and theorists in the form of conferences and symposia. »Beyond Radio: 25 years of Kunstradio – Radiokunst« gives an insight into the significance, the complexity and the internationality of this programme, whose institutional limits artists have never ceased to question.