I am a bit of a radio geek. When I was a teenager I already had my own show at the local FM station, in the workshop I always have a radio on in the background, and as an artist I use it daily as a material starting point to tell stories in sound. The book explains the physics and the tools of radio in plain language, from the crystal set and the shortwave receiver to software-defined radio, low-power transmitters and antennas you can build yourself. It examines the politics of a spectrum that belongs to everyone yet is controlled by very few, and maps out fifteen artistic approaches through the work of artists such as Christina Kubisch, Joyce Hinterding, Tetsuo Kogawa and Anna Friz. Throughout, I draw on more than twenty years of my own installations, experiments, performances and field recordings, from an antenna made of a rusty length of rebar near Chernobyl to my friend’s grave in Hannover that became a radio station for a day.

Most chapters close with exercises, many of which require nothing more than a portable radio and an attentive pair of ears. With a full glossary and a timeline of radio art from 1909 to 2026, Tune In! is a practical handbook and a field guide for anyone who wants to work with radio as sound, as medium and as material.