WDR Studio Akustische Kunst (WDR Studio Acoustic Art)
«WDR Studio Acoustic Art»

Independently of the diametrically opposite presentation of musique concrèteand electronic music in the Paris and Cologne studios, WDR3‘s radio play department has been broadcasting since 3 January 1963 using the name 'Hörspiele im III. Programm'. Since then it has developed into an international centre for Ars Acustica. In the late sixties the name was changed to WDR3-HörSpielStudio and in 1991 to Studio Akustische Kunst. Under the direction of Klaus Schöning the studio developed from a department with a repertory programme of original radio plays and accompanying broadcasts towards increasing detachment from the criteria of the literary radio drama and resultant integration into the intermedia tradition of the history of acoustic art. Today the weekly programme provides an open studio for artists from fields like literature, sound poetry, new music, pop and jazz, new radio plays, film, fine art, video-, computer- and performance-art. The aim of the studio's activities is to develop a language for acoustic art on the radio that is similar to the language of images in film.

Since 1985 the department has also organized 5 editions of the festival and symposium called 'Acustica International'.

Ill.: Carlfriedrich Claus and Klaus Schöning during the production of 'Produktion 'Lautaggregat K' ('Sound Aggregate K') 1993.