Nutshell: Udo Noll

“Aside from many others, an important quality of radio is its connectivity, the ability to create an almost spatial presence, among a virtual community of listeners, and of the media itself. The broad scales of old receivers tell a a story about this relation between space and the self, they are maps of a sonic landscape centered around an open ear.

The Internet shares some of these qualities, it's closer to radio than we may think. Today's most successful platforms are mainly text-based, which is surprising, given the audio-visual power of the system. And it's hard to imagine that this is because of the great depth and quality of the exchanged content. But it has to do with a state of beeing_connected, with contiguity in an vitually endless digital space, and with the presence of an audience. It's the broadcast nature of it, though transformed into a different media and different social practises.

When thinking about its own future, the feature as one of the most intriguing radio forms, should sense this connectivity, related technologies and practises. stations should have interest and budgets for experimental projects, since new fictions and narratives increasingly develop within these digital spheres."

Udo Noll, Radio Aporee, director, Germany