Saturday, December 30, 2017

The Culture File Weekly (50 Years of EBU Concert Exchanges)

In November, 1967, Hans Keller, a Viennese refugee who fled to London, created the first of now regular radio concert exchanges from halls around Europe. Luke Clancy travels to Geneva to meet the team that makes these broadcasts happen, and hears some of their ultimate concert choices.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Culture File "Likes": Anne Quinn

The Donegal painter shares her own Culture File "Likes" - which run from Chuck Berry to Vivaldi

Culture File Weekly - 22/12/17

Luke Clancy presents Culture File Weekly

Friday, December 22, 2017

Culture File's 2017 Journeys: 1968

The drummer who laid down the beat for Dutch free jazz in the 1960s, remembers life at a musical ground zero.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Culture File's 2017 Journeys: Sneakercon

A US caravan of sneaker-dealers, “ShoeTube" stars, brand-hypers and footwear fanatics arrives in Europe.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Culture File's 2017 Journeys: Brno

A a history of discrimination, mistrust, and persecution in Brno’s Museum of Roma Culture.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Culture File: Bruno Latour (Part 1 of 2)

Culture File meets a superstar of academia, and now a playwright and curator, Bruno Latour.

Culture File: Bruno Latour (Part 2of 2)

In the second part of our interview with philosopher of science, Bruno Latour, we hear how bad science might lead to good art(part 2 of 2)

Culture File's 2017's Journeys: The Burren

Environmentalist and writer, Gordon Darcy, uses paint to speak about the things that science can't quite grasp.

Monday, December 18, 2017

The Culture File Weekly 151217 (Radio Concerts, Non Alcoholic Craft Beer and Mead)

This weekly: the 50th birthday of Europe-wide concert exchanges; non-alcoholic craft beers of East London; and the mead revival in Kinsale

Culture File "Likes": Valerie Pakenham

Maria Edgeworth's latest editor shares her own Culture File Likes.

Friday, December 15, 2017

Culture File: Reaching Craft Beer Nirvana

East London's Nirvana Brewery is possibly the world's first entirely low and non-alcoholic brewery.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Culture File: The Sweet Taste of Norse Mythology

Blood mixed with honey was the base for an ancient Norse recipe for mead. Kinsale Mead tweaks things a bit...

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Culture File: Culture File: The Legacy of Hans Keller (part 2)

Was the radiophobe Benjamin Britten the right choice to conduct the first concert of a new broadcast paradigm?

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Culture File: The Legacy of Hans Keller

The dream of a Viennese refugee in London to unite Europe's concert halls, celebrates its 50th birthday.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Culture File 'Likes': Lian Bell

Theatre artist and activist, Lian Bell, on some of the things that she's be streaming, downloading and savouring this week

The Culture File Weekly 081217 (Maria Edgeworth And Her Town)

This weekly, a special edition leads us to Edgeworthstown and environs, in search of the spaces and stories of pioneering and bestselling Irish novelist, Maria Edgeworth, whose base in the Co Longford town became a 19th century literary hub

Friday, December 8, 2017

Culture File: Bill Fontana's 50 Years of Sound Sculpture

Some rather cryptic words from Marcel Duchamp helped the young Bill Fontana first understand his own work.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Culture File: Ancient Juice

Michele Sartori of Acetaia Giusti leads a tasting of precious black dots of aged balsamic vinegar

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Culture File: #Mariastown

On the trail of Maria Edgeworth, in Tullynally Castle, home of Ms Edgeworth's latest editor

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Culture File: Mariastown

Local historian, Matt Farrell, leads us through pioneering Irish novelist, Maria Edgeworth’s Co Longford home

Monday, December 4, 2017

Culture File "Likes": Maureen O'Connor

UCC's Maureen O'Connor shares some of the things she's been clicking like on this week.

The Culture File Weekly 011217 (Lian Bell, Jonathan Swift, Anne Cleary, Dreamgun)

This weekly, we discover a better mental health facility that Bedlam with the help of Dean Swift, watch 13 (or fewer) dots in the form of a conductor with Anne Cleary, join the Millennial sport of blockbuster movie spoofing with Dreamgun, and speculate, with Lian Bell, on the role of theatre design in the industry's current season of reckonings.

Friday, December 1, 2017

Culture File: Dean Swift at 350

Prof Jim Lucey on pamphleteer, priest and, of course, micro-loan pioneer, Jonathan Swift

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Culture File: #LianBell

Activist theatre artist, Lian Bell, on Amplify Women and the struggle to end harassment in the cultural industries

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Culture File: Anne Cleary's Rattle

Cleary | Connolly's Anne Cleary on tracking the movements of Simon Rattle while overcoming the fear of being simple

Culture File: Dreamgun's Box Office Demolitions

Dreamgun’s Heber Hanly on the comedy sketch troupe's live takedowns of film such as Titanic, Terminator & Die Hard

Monday, November 27, 2017

Culture File "Likes": Aoife Concannon

Ban Bam Festival founder, Aoife Concannon, on her favourite podcasts, movies...and compact cassettes.

The Culture File Weekly 24.11.17 (Ban Bam, Maureen O'Hara's Dior coat, Tim Robinson's Ecofeminism and Melissa Ellis' hunts)

This Weekly, we're in Durrow, County Laois, trying on a fur to which we otherwise strongly object, sizing up gender equality in improvised music, checking into Marsh's Library, Dublin, and listening carefully while Maureen O'Connor explains how Ecofeminism helps us understand that we are but assemblages of different kinds of being.

Friday, November 24, 2017

Culture File Xtra: What should we do with old furs?

The story of Maureen O'Hara's Dior Fur coat and Sheppards Auction House, where it currently finds itself, raises some questions for anyone who understands how cruel and unacceptable everything about wearing fur is. And it's not like the problem went unnoticed at Culture File Towers. So, Luke called up our reporter, Eleanor Flegg, to talk about what should happen to old and historic furs. PETA (http://ift.tt/2A6bsBt) has a good answer.

Culture File: Mellissa Odd Stories

From the Dead Zoo to underwater off Dalkey, and the shelves of Marsh's Library, Melissa Ellis hunts inspiration.

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Culture File: A New Home for Maureen O'Hara's Fur Coat

In Durrow, County Laois, Philip Sheppard, transitioner of objects, is at work in the family auction house...

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Culture File: Tim Robinson's Ecofeminism

We can re-learn to understand the world through Connemara-based artist, Tim Robinson's work, says Maureen O’Connor

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

The Culture File Weekly 17.11.17 (Veronika Harcsa, Louis Scully, Niamh Barry, Dave Flynn's Memory Orchestra)

This weekly, we're in North Co. Dublin to glimpse the glowing art of sculptor, Niamh Barry, we visit the big studio in Donnybrook with the RTE NSO and the Memory Orchestra, meet nightlife kingpin, Louis Scully, and hear some extended vocal technique from Hungarian jazznik, Veronika Harcsa.

Culture File: #wakingtheimprovisers

A new festival, Ban Bam, highlights female musicians playing jazz, improvised and experimental music.

Monday, November 20, 2017

Culture File "Likes": Veronika Harcsa

Hungarian vocalist, Veronika Harcsa, on some of the things she's (mentally) clicked like on recently.

Friday, November 17, 2017

Culture File: Live From Studio 1 with the Memory Orchestra

Composer, Dave Flynn and fiddler, Niamh Varian-Barry bring a collection of replica bronze age horns to Donnybrook

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Culture File: Discotekken with Louis Scully

DJ, music promoter (and potential Dublin Night Mayor) Louis Scully's musical kingdom

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Culture File: Veronika Harcsa Voices her Concern

Hungarian vocalist, Veronika Harcsa, on using the voice to escape from our digital sound prison

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Culture File: Ancient Lights

Amid the fruit-growing fields of North Co. Dublin, artist Niamh Barry and her team blend ancient and contemporary tech

Friday, November 10, 2017

Culture File: Brandon Labelle's Minor Acoustics

Listening might be an effective way to help us approach our global crisis, speculates sound artist and theorist, Brandon Labelle

Thursday, November 9, 2017

The Culture File Weekly 03.11.17 (Tucal 2017, Eva Stotz, Han Bennink & The Instant Composers Pool)

This weekly we fly to the free jazz hothouse of 1960s Holland with the Instant Composer Pool's Han Bennink, time-travel way back to 2010, when German filmmaker, Eva Stotz first started couchsurfing, and beam down to Galway's Tulca 2017 to ask "where have all the hippies gone?"

The Culture File Weekly 03.11.17 (Tucal 2017, Eva Stotz, Han Bennink & The Instant Composers Pool)

This weekly we are transported to the free jazz hothouse of 1960s Amsterdam with the Instant Composer Pool's Han Bennink, time-travel way back to 2010, when German filmmaker, Eva Stotz first started couchsurfing, and beam down to Galway's Tulca 2017 to enquire with curator Matt Packer: "where have all the hippies gone?"

Culture File: James Turrell Lichtinstallation Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof

Sunset in Berlin sees the coming to life of James Turrell's lightwork in a Mitte cemetery

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Culture File: Lucy Wright and the Digital Folk Project

What does "oral tradition" mean when players are as likely to learn a tune from Youtube as at a pub session?

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Culture File: Pavel at the Console

Czech organ virtuoso, Pavel Kohout, make his debut on Christchurch Cathedral's instrument.

Monday, November 6, 2017

Culture File "Likes": Kurt Andersen

Kurt Andersen, author of Fantasyland and presenter of NPR's Studio 360 on his week of "likes".

Friday, November 3, 2017

Culture File: Remembering Misha

Free jazz percussionist, Han Bennink, on his life in music with Misha Mengelberg and the Instant Composers Pool

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Culture File: The Hippy Dream Reanimated at Galway's Tulca 2017

Searching for the ghosts of lost hippies with Matt Packer, curator of Galway's yearly festival of visual arts

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Culture File: The Endless Voyages of Eva Stotz

Couchsurfing and tap-dancing come together in the career of German filmmaker, Eva Stotz

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Culture File Likes: Jenny Thomas

Jenny M Thomas of Australian new folksters Bush Gothic shares some of the things she's clicked 'like' on lately

The Culture File Weekly 27.10.17 (Kurt Andersen in Fantasyland, Sylvia L'Ecuyer in Wagnerland)

This weekly, American writer, Kurt Andersen reports to us from Fantasyland, his nightmare contemporary USA, in which entertainment and reality have finally merged. And musicologist & opera writer, Sylvia L'Ecuyer, decodes good and evil in updating opera

Friday, October 27, 2017

Culture File: Right and Wrong Ways To Update Opera

Musicologist and Wexford opera regular, Sylvia L'Ecuyer, on the risky art of gussying-up Mozart and Wagner

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Culture File: The End of Reason

US author, Kurt Andersen, completes his takedown of the "nuts and crackpots" of what his latest book calls "Fantasyland"

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Culture File: The Birth of Fantasyland

Author, Kurt Andersen, on how the credulity of America's first Europeans led, inevitably, to the Trump presidency

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Culture File: Buffalo Bill, Donald Trump and the birth of Fantasyland

Kurt Andersen's new 500 year history of American explores how reality and entertainment merged in the New World

Monday, October 23, 2017

Culture File Likes: Aisling Kelliher

Our tech correspondent shares some of the stuff she'd be clicking "Like" on, including a guidebook to tyranny

The Culture File Weekly 20.10.17 (Jonathan Meese, Anneleen Boeme, Aisling Kelliher)

This weekly, we're in Berlin with German artist-provocateur, Jonathan Meese; on the new frontiers of jazz with Anneleen Boeme and deep inside the matrix as Aisling Kelliher marks our card for the AI-filled future

Friday, October 20, 2017

Culture File: What exactly is wrong with AI?

Culture File techspert, Aisling Kelliher, on learning to love, cherish and discipline the AI in your life

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Culture File: The jazz mission of Anneleen Boehme

Belgian double bassist, Anneleen Boehme, is in search of new, more diverse audiences for jazz

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Culture File: Jonathan Messe's (and his mum's) Dictatorship of Art

The German artist briefs us on what's preventing the dictatorship of art that he and his mum are working towards

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Culture File: Jonathan Messe's (and his mum's) Dictatorship of Art

The German artist briefs us on what's preventing the dictatorship of art that he and his mum are working towards

Culture File Likes: Justin Green

Cork hotelier and gin distiller, Justin Green, shares some of the reading, listening and eating experiences that delight him

The Culture File Weekly 13.10.17 (Tamara Saulwick, Paddy Mann, Silver Linings LARP, whey alcohol)

This weekly, it's all about endings, with Tamara Saulwick's memorial interviews performance, Endings, the imagined life of a nursing home in Silver Lining, and the not-at-all dirty secret of whey alcohol

Friday, October 13, 2017

Culture File: LARPING old age (Part 2)

Silver Lining, a live action role play (LARP) game, offers a kind of engaged play the organisers call LARPtivism

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Culture File: LARPing Old Age

In Valdelaguna, Spain, players of a game called Silver Lining are exploring life, death & love in a retirement home

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Culture File: Crackles, Pops and Endings

Exploring loss with help from hissy reel to reel recorders and crackly vinyl in Tamara Saulwick’s Endings

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Culture File: The old new world of whey alcohol

Milk-based alcohol has ancient roots and remains very common - so why are we coy about it, wonders Justin Green

Monday, October 9, 2017

Culture File Likes: Liam Carson

Imram festival director, Liam Carson shares some books, shops, youtube videos he's been enjoying this week

The Culture File Weekly 06.10.17 (Mastering songwriting, the 21st century trumpet, horror sound)

This weekly, we spend some time with Duke Special and Carl Corcoran at a brand new Masters in songwriting at University of Limerick, hear how blowing into a trump is only one way to make it produce music, and unpack the new recipe for heebeegeebees-inducing movie music

Friday, October 6, 2017

Culture File: The New Trumpet

Norwegian composer and trumpeter, Hilde Marie Holsen, on her unique blend of brass and electronics

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Culture File: Hearing all the feels

Caitriona Walsh has been researching film composers who use new ways of making our bodies respond at the cinema

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Culture File: The Hallowed Words of Michael Longley

Singer-songwriter, Duke Special's latest album, Hallow, is based on the writings of Northern poet, Michael Longley

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Culture File: Mastering Songwriting with Carl Corcoran

A brand new Masters in songwriting at UL's Irish Academy of World Music and Dance welcomes its first students

Monday, October 2, 2017

The Culture File Weekly 29.10.17 (Alan Butler, Jenny Thomas, Gavin Fitzgerald, The Judgement of Paris: The Rematch)

This weekly a deep dive into the NURBs with artist Alan Butler, who creates his art within the game, Grand Theft Auto V, there's more skirmishes in a France v California wine battle, a confession on The Truth About Irish Hiphop and a 2017 Wild Colonial Boy

Culture File: Gavin Fitzgerald's Culture Picks

Culture File: Gavin Fitzgerald The director of Notorious and The Truth About Irish Hiphop decodes his content shopping list

Friday, September 29, 2017

Culture File: Bush Gothic

Singing fiddler, Jenny Thomas, reimagines Waltzing Matilda, The Wild Colonial Boy, and other Australian staples

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Culture File: The Truth About Irish Hiphop (Abrgd.)

Documentary maker, Gavin Fitzgerald, on how the preeminent sound of urban America became a naturalised Irish music

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Culture File: Down and Out in Dublin and Los Santos

The hard knock life of a street photographer in the virtual world of Grand Theft Auto, with artist, Alan Phelan

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Culture File: Another Judgment of Paris

Irish noses re-enact the occasion in Paris in 1976 when some of France's greatest wine experts were caught rapid

Friday, September 22, 2017

Culture File: Elizabeth Magill's Vernissage

The Antrim painter meets us @limerickgallery where she's watching over the hang for her exhibition, Headlands

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Culture File: Büchner and Schubert remixed

Büchner’s play, Woyzeck, and Schubert’s song cycle, Winterreise, get a mash up in Woyzeck in Winter

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Culture File: The Mae Trio

Two thirds of Australia folksters, The Mae Trio, on the special sauce of their glowing harmonies

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Culture File: La La Live!

Oscar-winning La La Land-composer, Justin Hurwitz, on his trilogy of musical movies with director, Damien Chazelle

Monday, September 18, 2017

Culture File Likes: The Mae Trio

The Australian folksters share their current ??? including Liane Moriarty and the smell of eucalyptus trees

The Culture File Weekly: Match and Fuse, Spliced, Alannah Hopkin, Alan James Burns

This weekly, a cave Portrane in North Co. Dublin is trying to trying to tell us something, writer, Alannah Hopkin is observing island life, spoilt hurler, Timmy Creed, in performing a play about loving and hating the game, and we enter the world of not-necessarily-jazz at Match and Fuse.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Culture File: Match & Fuse Festival of Brand New Music

Dublin hosts the festival that creates new acts by matching and fusing the best of Irish and European improvisers

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Culture File: Timmy Creed's Spliced

Timmy Creed's play, Spliced, explores the demands and rewards sport places on those who offer it their youth

Culture File: Closely Observed Islands

Ex-photojournalist and art critic, Alannah Hopkin's new collection of short stories explores Irish island life

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

The Culture File Weekly No. 1

The program returns with a special WOMAD edition, featuring sounds from the festival of global music and culture

Culture File: Entirely Hollow Aside from the Dark

What do caves think about, when they’re alone? A new cave-based sound installation makes a guess

Monday, September 11, 2017

Friday, September 8, 2017

Culture File: Mamadou Diabate and his talking balaphon

The percussion language of Sambla people with its greatest practitioner, balafon master, Mamadou Diabate.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Culture File: Xaos Theories

The music of Xaos melds the most ancient sounds of Greece with vintage synthesisers in search of the future

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Culture File: Hannah Peel's Brass Voyages

Armagh-born electronic composer, Hannah Peel, hits the stage at WOMAD 2017 with a 29-strong colliery brass band

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Culture File: Turning residents to dissidents with Benjamin Zephaniah

Voter competence testing and other post-Brexit fixes from poet and occasional reggae star, Benjamin Zephaniah

Monday, September 4, 2017

Culture File returns with dread at the controls

TODAY: Culture File returns & @BZephaniah plans the future of democracy @WOMAD 6.05pm, @RTElyricfm @LyricLorcan

Monday, July 31, 2017

Culture File: The Future of Craft

Richard Ocejo on where "whole animal butchery" fits into the revival of "craft" jobs

Friday, July 28, 2017

Culture File: The Limitless World of Aoife Dunne

Post-internet artist, Aoife Dunne, brings her digital army of electric blue fright-wigged dancers home to Blanchardstown

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Culture File: Vanilla Reaches The Indian Ocean

How a 12-year old slave labourer invented a quick, and dependable method to pollinate vanilla plants by hand

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Culture File: The Legend of Farinet

Legendary counterfeiter, Joseph-Samuel Farinet, was known to his fans as "The Robin Hood of the Alps"

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Culture File: Tag Beckett's Soul/Sole

Killiney artist, Tag Beckett, brings his latest set of painted inquisitions to The Blue Room, Dublin

Monday, July 24, 2017

Culture File: Prohibition and the Death of Craft

Masters of Craft author, Richard Ocejo, on the role of Prohibition in the US of shaping the world of 2017

Friday, July 21, 2017

Culture File: Academic Flying: The Plane Truth

Despite the environmental toll each year 1000s of academics fly 1000s of miles to conferences. Time for a rethink?

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Culture File: The Elbphilharmonie of the Heart

Maxime Le Calvet has been hanging out at legendary Hamburg club, The Golden Pudel, studying the venue's atmosphere

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Culture File: The Ethnomusicologist and the Machine Gun (Part 2)

Prof Samuel Araujo is using the special powers of ethnomusicology on the favelas of Rio

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Culture File: The Ethnomusicologist and the Machine Gun

In Culture File's first visit to the ICTM's 70th anniversary meeting, a samba rehearsal is interrupted by gunfire

Monday, July 17, 2017

Culture File: Storming Bastille Day

Aux Armes, citoyens! On Bastille Day, poet and fan of l'Hexagone, Michael O'Loghlin, gives his vision of what makes France...France.

Friday, July 14, 2017

Culture File: Polocrosse in the Blood

Mayoman, Tony O’Donnell, on discovering he suffers from the epigenetic condition known as “horses in the blood”

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Culture File: The Rise of Omnivorous Taste

Richard Ocejo on how bartenders, butchers and brewers create the tastes of the contemporary urban life (Masters of Craft Part 2)

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Culture File: Masters of Craft

Why has "craft" become the adjective of choice whenever somebody is trying to sell us something? (Part 1)

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Culture File: WTF's Absolute Beginners

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot theatre company's latest show explores attitudes and anxieties of Generation Xanax

Friday, July 7, 2017

Culture File: Live at O’Bheal

Poet, Maria McManus, on her collaborative experiments to find fresh ways of putting words into public spaces

Culture File: Dael Orlandersmith's Long Strange Trip (Part 2)

Orlandersmith's Until The Flood was written in response to the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Culture File: Dael Orlandersmith's Long Strange Trip.

"Forever" tells the story one woman's journey from 1970s Harlem, to Paris' most artistic cemetery

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Culture File: The Many Media of composer, Jonathan Nangle

Soldering, shopping, knitting, 3D printing and other arts of composer, Jonathan Nangle's work.

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Culture File: Origami Excellence

It'll teach you maths and clear you mind. Oh, and Portlaoise might soon be a world centre for it... Origami.

Monday, July 3, 2017

Culture File: Camille Norment

Camille is an Oslo based artist and musician who is currently representing Norway at the Venice Biennale.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Culture File: Ron Kilmartin's Comedy Memorial Service

Fearless comic @anylaurie16 on her darkly funny standup about death and dying, 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad

Friday, June 30, 2017

Culture File: The Chewing Gum Man's Illuminated World

The Chewing Gum Man is a street artist who paints on the countless dropped gobs of gum on London's pavements

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Culture File: Paul G Smyth's Moving Piano

Paul G Smyth, prepares for the latest in his 20-year long series of free improvised solo piano performances.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Culture File: The Play That Goes Right To Broadway

Super-farce, The Play That goes wrong began life above London pub and now boast JJ Abrams as a co-producer.

Monday, June 26, 2017

Culture File: A List of Good and Bad Lists

The list was an essential tool both for the Nazis and, later, Michel Foucault, explains listademic Liam Cole Young.

Friday, June 23, 2017

Culture File: List Cultures

The political and poetic things that happen when we present a number of connected items consecutively

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Culture File: Pátio da Cerveja, Lisboa

A super-strong beer known as "wheat wine" (one of the world's oldest beer types) is enjoying a revival in Portugal

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Culture File: Helene Bøksle Sets Sail

Norwegian pop singer, Helene Bøksle, is exploring the place where traditional Irish and Norwegian musics meet

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Culture File: Smarter Than The City

What sort of human does the city want? Prof Gillian Rose on learning from the advertising surrounding Smart Cities

Monday, June 19, 2017

Culture File: Waking The Plough

Have the opportunities of Irish women in theatre improved since the days of Ria Mooney's Rosie Redmond?

Friday, June 16, 2017

Culture File: Ciara O’Dowd's Women of the Early Abbey Theatre (EXCERPT)

An excerpt from today's Culture File - Hear the rest on Culture File, RTE lyric fm, 6.05pm, Friday, June 16th. A cache of letters from the actress Aideen O’Connor fuelled Ciara O’Dowd's deep dive into the lives of Irish actresses who travelled to the US with the Abbey Company in the 1920s and 1930s. But what shocked the writer, researcher and Waking The Feminist activist, was how little has changed for women in Irish theatre...

Culture File: 1st Annual Culture File World Tapas Day Tapas-Off: Spain v Ireland

His excellency, Jose Maria Rodriguez-Coso and chef, Kevin Thornton, "compete" in a World Tapas Day tapas-off

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Culture File: "White African Power"

Tanzania Albinism Collective of Ukerewe island and producer, Ian Brennan, have created a unique musical collab.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Culture File: Not World Music

Grammy Award-winning producer, Ian Brennan's work in conflict resolution lead him to discover and record the musics of the despised and excluded photo: Marilena Delli

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Culture File: Collecting Squelches at Moog Sound Lab

Chicks on Speed's Melissa Logan, goes hunting for crunchy synth goodness at the Moog Sound Lab

Monday, June 12, 2017

Culture File: Moon and Flowers in Wicklow Garden

Harold Clarke's garden (which now features a concert hall) grew from dream of a Wicklow cottage, with some roses

Friday, June 9, 2017

Culture File: Post-Trad? Is that a thing?

Ensemble Ériu's Neil O'Lochlain, explores the outer limits of Irish music with his new trio, Cuar

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Culture File: The Toil of Susanne R Day

The theatre of Cork suffragist and writer, Susanne R Day, is re-imagined by Painted Bird theatre company

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Culture File: (Gong) Bath Night

At a gong bath, we dim the lights and discover if the sound of shimmering metal can sooth a troubled world

Culture File: Live from Studio 1

Luke Clancy presents Culture File live from Studio 1 as part of the Summer Sounds Concert with Classic Drive and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. Featuring Arantxa Lopez.

Friday, June 2, 2017

Culture File: Ambulance Speed to Sherkin Island

Dublin electronic music duo, Ambulance, reunite for this year's Open Ear Festival on Sherkin Island

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Culture File: @SneakerCon Goes Global

.@SneakerCon's band of sneakerheads & "ShoeTubers" makes its debut outside US w/ @RICHIELE23 @FOGLDN @_iLifestyle_

Culture File: Sakha Threads

Sakha, Saydyy Kuo and Glaswegian, Oscar, met and married following an eye-opening musical experience at WOMAD

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Culture File: Sister Vikings

Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland, Else Berit Eikeland, on vikings, polar exploration and other histories we share

Friday, May 26, 2017

Culture File: Pat Moylan's Business

From running a Dublin theatre to tooling up international productions, Pat Moylan knows the business of shows.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Culture File: Artangel's New Spaces

Artangel co-founder, James Lingwood, on art, space and his latest venture - into the digital.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Culture File: Bomi Odufunade's Mission

Bomi Odufunade, of world's first art advisory for African art, works to repatriate looted works of African art

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Culture File: What Am I Working On?

Curators visiting this weekend's ARCOLisboa from Johannesburg, Medellin and Paris look to their future programs

Monday, May 22, 2017

Culture File: The Joy of Pizza

Pizza purists, Giorgio Casari and Lucio Paduano, on the battle to preserve Italian pizza culture

Friday, May 19, 2017

Culture File: Příběh Romů

Words and music from the world's first and only museum of Roma culture, in Brno in the Czech Republic

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Culture File: Maguy Marin's Singspiele

Choreographer, Maguy Marin based her show, Singspiele, on a series of head shots plucked semi-randomly from the internet

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Culture File: Katerina's Voyage

Linguist and singer, Katerina Garcia, sets off on a journey through Bohemian, Castilian, Catalan and Irish song

Monday, May 15, 2017

Culture File: Catalonia in Music

A mini-break in Catalonia, with Tordrá, Casals and The Catalan Chamber Orchestra's conductor, Joan Pàmies

Friday, May 12, 2017

Culture File: Reimagining Daniel

Is Daniel O'Donnell a pioneering artist with an instinctive grasp of the realities of end phase capitalism?

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Culture File: Green Sleeves

From sermons-on-vinyl to kosmic celtic wigouts, at a new show of Irish album sleeves at the National Print Museum

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Culture File: The Accidental Publisher (Part 2)

Michael O'Brien on creating a new Irish children's literature while fighting off the global publishing sharks

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Culture File: The Accidental Publisher

Michael O'Brien, founder of the O'Brien Press, on starting an Irish publishing industry - and keeping it alive

Monday, May 8, 2017

Culture File: Obrigado Portugal

Celebrating the language and culture that links Portugal to Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde and beyond, with Juliana Menezes.

Saturday, May 6, 2017

All Ireland Drama Reports

Brenda Donohue reports from Thursday night 4th May at the 2017 RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival in Dean Crowe Theatre, Athlone.

Friday, May 5, 2017

Culture File: The Ethnomusicologist's Cookbook

Ethnomusicologist, Sean Williams, on the rich connections between recipes and tunes; rice-cooking and music-making.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Culture File: Tea and Java

Linguist and ethnomusicologist, Sean Williams, on the "old way" in the songs of Ireland and Java.

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Culture File: Proofing Trump

Linguist, ethnomusicologist and gastromusicologist, Sean Williams, on the grammatic fragility of No. 45

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Culture File: Is This The Best Bar In The World?

The tiny bar in the Czech city of Brno that elevates mixed drinks to what you might call art. Or perhaps, therapy

Friday, April 28, 2017

Culture File: Ball Alley Banshees and Drive In Bingo

Back inside artist, Michael Fortune's grain silo for tales of car-based bingo & other contemporary folk happenings

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Culture File: Songs from The Silo

A grain silo salvaged by folklorist, Michael Fortune, has a new life as a performance space for traditional song

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Culture File: Enter Stage Left

The theatre philosophy of Brecht is at the centre of Enter Stage Left, a new show at Cork's Glucksman Gallery

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Culture File: Bringing up Zomben

The couple behind a new comic book set in the post-multipocalypse era, on crying, collaboration and zombies

Monday, April 24, 2017

Culture File: The Right To Repair

Aisling Kelliher on the latest skirmishes between the tinkerers and the makers of increasingly fix-hostile tech

Friday, April 21, 2017

Culture File: Odette at the Osmotheque

Scent correspondent, Odette Toilette, sniffs her way through forty years of classic perfumes

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Culture File: History Through The Wringer

Austin O’Sullivan on one of the 20th century’s most influential inventions – the washing machine

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Culture File: Farming Then

Austin O’Sullivan built the Irish Agricultural Museum from a collection of farm equipment he began in the 1970s

Monday, April 10, 2017

Culture File: Bitter Herbs and Blessed Eggs

Restaurateur, Giorgio Casari, on some persistent Easter traditions of his home town in Northern Italy

Friday, April 7, 2017

Culture File: Mssrs Levin and Levin, artistes

Actor-playwright, Aideen Wylde, calls her new play, Levin and Levin, an ode to displaced children across the world

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Culture File: Salts of the World with Katie Kim

Katie Kim on "going classical," her latest album, Salt, and the distinctive taste of Hawaiian Red Clay salt

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Culture File: Watching The Watchers with Big Brother Watch UK

Renata Samson of Big Brother Watch UK, is keeping an eye on who shares your data

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Culture File: Literally the most popular artist in the world

Rated by museum admittances to her shows, Australian artist, Patricia Piccinini wins 2016

Monday, April 3, 2017

Culture File: Xyrena's scent memories

Love the chlorinated smell of a water ride? Dig the choco whiff of nutella? Killian Wells has the perfume for you

Friday, March 31, 2017

Culture File: The Dancer's Journey

Rebeca Mateos Morante's dancing days lead from the Latin phase of Madonna to the philosophy of Jacques Lacan

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Culture File: Finding Máirtín Ó Cadhain...in Prague

Radvan Markus is a rather singular creature: a Czech gaeilgeoir and translator of Irish literature

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Culture File: Nick Zollicker, Smell Detective

Real life smell scientist, Avery Gilbert, has created a fictional sleuth specialising in fragrant mysteries

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Culture File: The Eternal Light of Harry Clarke

Among the lilacs, greens, scarlets and deep, deep blues of Harry Clarke’s stained glass in St Mary's, Ballinrobe

Monday, March 27, 2017

Culture File: Lady Chatterley’s Tinderbot

Artist, Libby Heaney’s online love experiment, Lady Chatterley’s Tinderbot, set a Lawrencian chatbot loose on Tinder

Friday, March 24, 2017

Culture File: What is it with organs and dictators?

Opera director, Michael Sturminger mediates on pipes and power in Call Me God, his collab with John Malkovich

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Culture File: Confetti Falling in the Rain

Colette Cassidy and Nigel Clark on their first set of original soon-to-be-standards written by the pair

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Culture File: Live at King John's Castle

Medievalist, Catherine Swift, talks to Culture File about viking limerick, the surnames of old limerick and what we know about the origins and uses of King's John's Castle

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Culture File: Manga, it's not just for kids y'know...

Katsushika Hokusai and the 19th century roots of Japanese graphic storytelling

Monday, March 20, 2017

Culture File: The Darkness Is Gaining On Bela Tarr

The world's greatest living filmmaker, Bela Tarr, on film, philosophy and the fading of the light

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Culture File: View from the Corner Office

Gazing into the future of the Elbphilharmonie, with the director of Hamburg's new hall, Christoph Lieben-Seutter

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Culture File: The Elbphilharmonie Opens

Six years late and ten times over-budget, Hamburg's new concert hall, The Elbphilharmonie, is ready for action

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Culture File: St Pauli Street Arts

Hamburg's St Pauli district (crest: the skull and crossbones) sees itself as the heart of alternative Hamburg

Monday, March 13, 2017

Culture File: Choice Prize winners, Rusangano Family

Shannon-based rap trio and Choice Music Prize-winners, Rusangano Family, on soul, the real and the fake

Friday, March 10, 2017

Culture File: Birds of Olympus Fly South

Spud, from Wicklow psychedelic pop band, Birds of Olympus, prepares for a trip to SxSW Festival in Austin, Texas

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Culture File: The Palette of Prehistory

At UCC, Maria McNamara has been investigating the evolution of colour in animals through deep time

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Culture File: The Biology of Making

A petri dish of international artists and academics interested the natural world meetup at Make 2017

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Culture File: In a Leafscape

Painter, Jess Shepherd, leads us into her "botanical dystopia" with the help of sound artist, Hoodlum Priest

Monday, March 6, 2017

Culture File: Culture as a Weapon (Part 2/2)

Nato Thompson on the hijacking of social justice issues by massive brands & his favourite resistance strategies

Friday, March 3, 2017

Culture File: Culture as a Weapon

Nato Thompson on how culture was weaponized to manipulate our feelings about everything from shopping to voting

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Culture File: A mezzo-soprano prepares

Tralee-born, Paula Murrihy takes a call in her Manhattan apartment as she prepares for her Met debut on Friday

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Culture File: Natural Super Materials

Harnessing the slow power of molluscs to create "bio-concrete" to save Venice and other super material surprises

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Culture File: The Rise of the Super Material

Violins made of silk? Living concrete? Touching the future at a show of new materials technologies

Monday, February 27, 2017

Culture File: Vegetarianism: The Story So Far

The deep, deep history of abstaining from meat in Ian McDonald's epic audio history of ethical eating

Friday, February 24, 2017

Culture File: The British Are Coming: The Podcast

Writer-director, Siofra Campbell, has created bingeable podcast about English refugees fleeing Brexit

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Culture File: The Deadpan of Resistance

Liam William on where the political vision of capitalist realism meets standup comedy

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Culture File: The Return of The Larger

Master brewer and beer judge, Gearóid Cahill, on the promiscuity of the craft beer fan

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Culture File: Humans Need Not Apply

Artist, Pedro Lopes on work looking at how human bodies might be of use to our robot overlords

Monday, February 20, 2017

Culture File: On Your Knees In The Burren (Part 2 of 2)

Environmentalist and painter, Gordon D'Arcy on what his Burren images speak about that his science can't

Friday, February 17, 2017

Culture File: On Your Knees In The Burren

Environmentalist-artist, Gordon D'Arcy, on the close-up magic of a unique landscape

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Culture File: Feeling and Knowing with Enda Walsh

What is this room? Who is that person? What are we doing here? Enda Walsh on his Abbey debut, Arlington

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Culture File: Prof Ted Dinan's Love Bugs

How research in Cork into gut bacteria reveals how your microbes might steer your relationships

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Culture File: The Full Body Workout of Preston Reed's Guitar Music

The American-born Scottish-based guitar innovator on explosively expanding the possibilities of his instrument

Monday, February 13, 2017

Culture File: Chinese ambassador to Ireland, Yue Xiaoyong (2/2

Yue Xiaoyong, on a cultural explanation of China's recent appetite for new ways of being in the world

Friday, February 10, 2017

Culture File: Chinese ambassador to Ireland, Ywe Xiaoyong

Ywe Xiaoyong, diplomat, former schoolteacher and farmer, on Irish history and culture seen through a Chinese lens

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Culture File: The Year of The Chicken and The Planet

Our chicken-shaped lens on China zooms in on the environment, with help from Prof. Heidi Ningkang Wang-Kaeding

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Culture File: Zhou Tian's Multicultural Musical Mosaic

Composer, Zhou Tian's work brings the sound of Chinese instruments, the erhu and zhongruan to the orchestra

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Culture File: The Chinese 20th Century of Years of the Chicken (or Rooster)

Historian, Isabella Jackson, on China's 20th century seen through its Years of the Chicken. Or rooster.

Monday, February 6, 2017

Culture File: The Chinese Food Philosophy of Sláint-Chi

How two Chinese foodies join forces to defeat fake food - and promote the best Chinese cooking in Ireland

Friday, February 3, 2017

Culture File: The Other, Other Grand Canal

Conductor Jia-Ming Song prepares for the premier of a suite inspired by the Beijing and Hangzhou Grand Canal

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Culture File: Magic as speculative fiction

Portuguese master magician, Luís de Matos on how illusions and even tricks have long helped us to create our futures

Culture File: Magic as speculative fiction

Portuguese master magician, Luís de Matos on how illusions and even tricks have long helped us to create our futures

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Culture File: Gaolbreak at Cork City Hall

For her new installation, artist, Angela Fulcher turns the inventory of Guineys and Penneys into sculpture

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Culture File: Yang Wang Preston's Mother River

Yang Wang Preston's "deep mapping" photo project shot the Yangtze from the Tibetan plateau down into Shanghai

Monday, January 30, 2017

Culture File: Say 你好 (Nǐ hǎo) to the Chicken

Welcoming the Year of the Chicken (or Rooster, or ?) in Kevin Hui's family business, China Sichuan Restaurant

Friday, January 27, 2017

Culture File Xtra: Hóngbāo?

Got your Hóngbāo ready? Preparing for tonight's @dcnyf with @ChinaSichuanD18 Kevin Hui 6.05pm @RTElyricfm @LyricLorcan

Culture File: The End of Airports

Chris Schaberg finds the hidden texts of air travel in everything from snacks, to wheelie bags to, er, the toilets

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Culture File: Waiting at the Gate P1

What does your wheelie bag mean? How about those overhead bins? Dr. Chris Schaberg decodes air travel for a living

Culture File: Troy Town Art Pottery

Aaron Angell welcome us to his ‘radical and psychedelic' ceramics workshop for artists’ in London's East End.

Culture File: Black Pigs of the Dehesa

Meet the lucky pigs of the Sierra de Aracena Biosphere Reserve, in Southern Spain.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Culture File: Pianist, Izumi Kimura and percussionist, Gerry Hemingway's Thought Bubbles

In Galway's remote Inagh Valley, musicians Izumi Kimura and Gerry Hemingway have found a space for improvisation

Friday, January 20, 2017

Culture File: Jaques Brel Is Alive And Well and Living at the Gate

Cathal Synnott, musical director of the legendary Brel musical, explores the power of Brel

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Culture File: Cian Nugent's guitar fictions

Dublin guitar explorer, Cian Nugent, on quietly ploughing his own furrow - and composing music for his dog

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Culture File: And would madam like earplugs with that?

LA-based Irish photographer Deirdre O Callaghan's new book is a who's who of alive and kick-drumming percussionists

Culture File: Second Moon of Winter

Irish soprano, Kim Sheehan, explores the extreme possibilities of her voice in an experimental electronic jam band

Culture File: A Birthday Party for Art

Experimental sound curator and Nova presenter, Bernard Clarke, on an tradition invented by French Fluxus artist, Robert Filliou

Friday, January 13, 2017

Culture File: Collecting The World (Part 2)

John Hutchinson on writing and art, and the Douglas Hyde Gallery's role in the Peace Process

Culture File: Collecting The World (Part 1)

John Hutchinson, on the objects and ideas that guided his quarter century curating at The Douglas Hyde Gallery

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Culture File: Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann

German director, Maren Ade, on her Oscar-nominated comedy, Toni Erdmann. And Austin Powers' false teeth.

Culture File: On The Road With Darinka Montico

Set sail into the woozy unknown of 2017 with best-selling travel writer and dream collector, Darinka Montico.