Making nature

exploring our imaginations when we speak about NATURE.

Octo­ber 2021-dec 2022: working on the doku-fic­tion radio­play “Second Future” — a Hau­ser-figu­re, which crea­tes his own Natu­re. (sup­por­ted by Aka­de­mie der Küns­te Ber­lin).

San­dy Soil — ein Exkurs about natu­re

March — dec 2022: working on a audio-visu­ell Lab in a post-indus­tri­al land­s­cape to crea­te fray­ed edges of a cul­tu­ral­ly crea­ted area.

Sep­tem­ber 2022: Making natu­re — 8 audio-chan­nel instal­la­ti­on, objects and per­for­man­ces in Knack Gar­den Leip­zig during the Seanaps-Fes­ti­val

Aus­zug Instal­la­ti­on Knack­gar­ten Leip­zig Sept.2022

August 5th 2022: for Radio Art Zone in Esch Wendt wal­ked 22 hours mee­ting peop­le and ide­as sur­roun­ding sur­pri­sing ways to under­stand the term of natu­re.

The­re­fo­re he spo­ke with peop­le he meets on his long walk through a day and a small coun­try, he will speak and lis­ten to ani­mals and plants, extra­or­di­na­ry and inven­ted beings and land­s­capes. And pro­bab­ly he will invi­te peop­le from other pla­ces to ima­gi­ne what’s the­re around Esch.

4 mics, a small mixer in his pockets, a play­er and a tele­pho­ne — with this smal­lest radio­stu­dio he dig­ged in the dirt, rested in the dawn, clim­bed trees and ruins.

Wendt works for years on the fric­tion bet­ween roman­tic approa­ches to natu­re and the decon­struc­tion of our under­stan­ding of it.
He works with ani­mal voices and ani­ma­lic human voices as well as dif­fe­rent body­sounds of living beings.

Topic-related selection of previous works

Birds — Ambro­si­us-church
Mag­de­burg 1999

In a Video-and Audio­in­stal­la­ti­on Wendt worked toge­ther with the Ber­lin based artist Burg­hard Vogel on an ima­gi­na­ry “second world” under­ground of the church in Mag­de­burg for the ope­ning of the Grenz­gän­ger-Fes­ti­val 1999.
Video and Sound trans­mit­ted „live“ into the church.

Vogel der Woche — bird of the week

wee­kly Pod­cast sin­ce 2009, to intro­du­ce one spe­ci­es to an audi­ence, which is nor­mal­ly not inte­rested in birds in ca. 30 non­com­mer­ci­al radi­os in Ger­ma­ny, Aus­tria and switz­er­land.

Buch der ima­gi­nä­ren Wesen — book of ima­gi­na­ry beings

Radio­art for Deutsch­land­ra­dio 1997 with texts by Jor­ge Luis Bor­ges

Under­ground — instal­la­ti­on gal­le­ry Moritz­burg Hal­le 1999

Water, Foel, wood, metal, mea­se­ring instru­ments, Audio­in­stal­la­ti­on
In the Base­ment of Staat­li­che Gale­rie Moritz­burg accord­ing to art­pri­ce Sax­o­ny-Anhalt 1999 für art­collec­tive TATARIN

Visi­tors wal­ked on woo­den pathes through a swam­py ground of the base­ment, in which Wendt instal­led fic­tio­nal gro­wing life; the deve­lop­ment of this was mea­su­red and trans­la­ted into sounds

In the Per­for­mance-Col­lek­ti­ve „The­wol­fin­the­win­ter“ Wendt works sin­ce 2001 about the fric­tions of human acting as a soci­al but also ani­mal being

Migra­ti­on Klai­pe­da — Audio­in­stal­la­ti­on Klai­pe­da 2002

In a  super­mar­ket Wendt instal­led an instal­la­ti­on with bird­sounds of litu­a­ni­an migra­ti­on events, com­bi­nes with refle­xi­ons of local bio­lo­gists about human-natu­re-rela­ti­ons­hips

Rezen­si­on Aus­stel­lun­gen Vaka­ry Express 31.05.2002

Rik­ki Tiki & Tavi — Raum­in­stal­la­ti­on, Fotos, Audio­in­stal­la­ti­on Hal­le 2003

In an empty down­town-shop Dani­el Herr­mann and Wendt offe­red an Instal­la­ti­on, which ques­tio­ned our rela­ti­ons­hip to ani­mals around us.

Cnim­ki (2007) — Pho­to-Audio­in­stal­la­ti­on in Kasan (Rus, Wol­ga)

nati­ve tata­ri­an ani­mals in the city­cent­re of Kasan
Tem­pora­ry Audio­post­cards, which have a long tra­di­ti­on in Rus­sia, offe­red in the city cent­re on fre­quent­ly visi­ted spaces (Bus­stops, Kreml, bars). The cards inclu­ded descrip­ti­ons and voice-col­la­ges of rare ani­mals of the gras­lands.

Allu­vi­al-enrich­ment — Audio­in­stal­la­ti­on & Per­for­mance Peißnitz Halle/S. 2010

Toge­ther with his art­col­le­gue and fri­end Thies Strei­fin­ger Wendt woke up a night­ly allu­vi­al forest 2010 in a Per­for­mance with a hid­den Audio­in­stal­la­ti­on in Hal­le to tro­pi­cal life.

art for ani­mals — Instal­la­ti­ons and Per­for­man­ces Zoo­park Hal­le Okto­ber 2011

With Hagen Bäcker and Tho­mas Rabisch cura­ted Wendt and worked him­s­elf in the Fes­ti­val art for ani­mals in the Zoo
Hal­le. The dai­ly „fee­ding round“ was con­sis­ting of com­po­si­ti­ons for 20 dif­fe­rent spe­ci­es, pro­du­ced toge­ther with bio­lo­gists.

music for nort­hern bald ibis

music for pata­go­ni­an degus

music for Keas

music for Indi­an ele­phants

music for Hum­boldt pen­gu­ins

Potoo en la casa — Per­for­mance und Instal­la­ti­on Cho­ro­ni, Vene­zue­la 2013

In Vene­zue­la Wendt put 2013 an Audio-Instal­la­ti­on and Per­for­mance for the inh­a­bi­tants of Cho­ro­ni at the rain­fo­rest bor­der. The used and part­ly arran­ged sounds were trans­porting voices of ani­mals of the upper rain­fo­rest in defo­rested parts around the vil­la­ge

The Con­quest of Natu­re (2015–2017)
(Fea­ture-Series after the Book by David Black­bourne)
histo­ry and cri­tic of natu­re-regu­la­ti­ons in Ger­ma­ny

Radio-Fea­ture men­imals — rela­ti­ons humans and ani­mals
Corax Hal­le 2010, Swr 2018

Birds — 2016 ORF Kunst­ra­dio

For this radio­art-per­for­mance Wendt com­po­sed live 2016 for art’s bir­th­day in Vien­na with field record­ings as a remi­nis­cence to dada­istic deman­ds (Hans Arp) for com­po­si­ti­ons with natu­re sounds.

Collec­tors radio — Instal­la­ti­on — old Zoo­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te Dom­platz Hal­le 2016

In a 16-chan­nel-micro­pho­ne-mix was the inner life of the 300 years old buil­ding of natu­re sci­ence collec­tions trans­mit­ted to the public space and into the FM radio.

The ima­gi­na­ti­on of the pas­sing by peop­le was fee­ded by the invi­si­ble sources of noi­ses of moved pre­pa­ra­tes, night­ly sounds of ani­mals in the cel­lar, tele­pho­ne-talks of bio­lo­gists about nome­n­cla­tu­re of bird names in the inner rooms of the buil­dings.

Hau­ser

In Solo-Per­for­man­ces, in collec­tive works and in Sound­works  Wendt rese­ar­ched and worked about the Figu­re „Hau­ser“ on the edge of being human and ani­mal. 2020 his Radio­play „Hau­ser-Show“ was awar­ded with the Jury-Pri­ce of Ber­li­ner Hör­spiel­fes­ti­val.

Brah­ma­pu­tra — Audio­fea­ture 2020

The living toge­ther of peop­le and river expe­ri­en­ced on a per­for­mance­trip to india 2020 inspi­red Wendt to speak with dif­fe­rent peop­le about their rela­ti­ons­hip to one of the last big unre­gu­la­ted rivers of the world.

Birds in and around Hal­le — illus­tra­ted Book 2020–2021
work in pro­gress

Sto­ries about a very spe­cial cul­tu­ral­ly  for­med land­s­cape of the regi­on of for­mer mining and thousands of years of cul­ti­va­ti­on

ma___g nat__e — 60 min radio labo­ra­to­ry action lis­ten here by Jas­mi­na Al-Qai­si and Ralf Wendt for Mean­der Lunch

12/12/2020 D21 Gal­le­ry / Leip­zig, Ger­ma­ny teaser here

For the launch of MEANDER launch and on the topic of sustai­na­bi­li­ty, we deci­ded to dis­cuss in an essay-like man­ner, simi­lar­ly to our for­mat Exi­le-Exha­le-Exit also pre­mie­red in ODD, a topic we are both inte­rested in name­ly the idea of natu­re and what making it could pre­su­me.

We reflec­ted out loud from the tight and limi­ted ima­gi­na­ti­on in Euro­pe, what pos­si­b­ly activa­tes peop­le world-wide to keep an envi­ron­ment plea­sura­ble. We think most often of peop­le, birds and grains, most­ly that we met or tas­ted. Our ima­gi­na­ti­on on sustai­na­bi­li­ty is com­ing strai­ght from our memo­ry and expe­ri­en­ces with groups ori­en­ted towards a chan­ge or con­ser­va­ti­on through ‘making natu­re’. In this case, ‘making natu­re’ or ‘ma___g nat__e’ stands for blur­ring the deno­mi­na­ti­ons bet­ween peop­le and natu­re, natu­ral and arti­fi­ci­al, loo­king for a holistic approach to chan­ge, pro­tec­tion and radi­cal per­spec­tive on com­pre­hen­ding the envi­ron­ment. ‘ma___g nat__e’ is incom­ple­te, as this mind-moving action aims to be, and it stands for fle­xi­ble and in moti­on deci­si­on making towards what human-made ide­as of natu­re could be, or even what human-made natu­re could be.

With Anna Zawadzka, Frank Stein­hei­mer, Alex­an­der Klo­se; quo­ting Deccan Deve­lop­ment Socie­ty, San­gam Radio and David Black­bourn

Our radio action hap­pen­ed in the live radio lab and stu­dio of ‘Any­bo­dy out the­re?!’ 100 years of Radio in Ger­ma­ny, D21 Gal­le­ry, Leip­zig and will be trans­mit­ted regio­nal­ly on FM and was world-wide spread through the Mean­der net­work: ODD, Insti­tu­to Pro­comum , Ensay­os
Tent­haus / Oslo, Nor­way

A ‘Being’ Natu­re / Natu­ra Crea­tu­ra / Naturwesen/ […]

Sound and mul­ti­me­dia instal­la­ti­on by Jas­mi­na Al-Qai­si and Ralf Wendt arta non­stop Gal­le­ry, Astra libra­ry and GONG theat­re Sibiu
Cura­ted by Iris Orde­an

With vocal accounts from Sibiu area:
Simo­na Leder­man, Adria­na Chiru­ta, Moni­ka Tom­pos, Lucia Sevestre­an, Win­a­el Bal­dus, Kili­an Dörr, Hans, Iain Trew­by, Cris­ti­an Cis­ma­ru, Lia Per­jov­schi, Dan Per­jov­schi, Vik­to­ria Luft, Joe Eng­land, San­dy Stan­cu, And­reea Mada­li­na Burg­he­lea and more.

A Being Natu­re — Audio­in­stal­la­ti­on Pfarr­kir­che Sibiu 2021

10 hours Ani­mal-voice-sur­round-com­po­si­ti­on for the Church

Das Un im Unkraut — The Pest in Pest Plant — Fea­ture for SWR and DFKul­tur 2021

With Nata­lia Fer­re­ra (artist), Valen­tin Kur­ten­bach (Bio­lo­gie-Stu­dent, Musi­ci­an), Frank Stein­hei­mer (direc­tor of the cen­tral collec­tions of  natu­ral sci­en­ces MLU Hal­le), Jan Lang­ham­mer (Phi­lo­so­pher), Marold Lan­ge-Phil­ipp­sen (artist), Ste­pha­nie Kur­ten­bach (speech-sci­en­tist), Tina Klat­te (cul­tu­ral sci­en­tist), Thies Strei­fin­ger (gar­de­ner, pho­to­gra­pher and musi­ci­an), sounds also by Gus­ta­vo Men­dez (Artist)