19 February 2021

Thoughts about art, cyborgs, machines, space travel, society and music at the 5th edition of the podcast 'Städel Mixtape' by Städel Museum X ByteFM

The first edition of the podcast 'Städel Mixtape' by Städel Museum (Frankfurt) and Radio ByteFM (Hamburg) was on air at the end of last year. In the meanwhile, already five podcast editions (in German language) by ByteFM's Till Kober and Städel Museum's Sarah Omar and Anne Sulzbach were published. In the center of each edition is an artwork such as in the latest podcast the painting 'Hosenträger' from 1970 by Bettina von Arnim. It shows a cyborg wearing work trousers and suspenders. At the Städel Mixtape #5, the artwork is deciphered from various perspectives, from art historical views on the work of Bettina von Arnim, societal views on the impact of robots, machines, space travel on people of the 60s, 70s, to environment or gender related topics and the tracing of the early beginnings of the Digital Era. Music journalist Till Kober selected iconic computer, machine, robot related tracks mainly from the 70ies up to nowadays and sets the playlist with the visual art and the societal development with focus on the last around 50 years into relation. Among the selected tracks and topics, the composition 'Der Maschinenmensch' by Gottfried Huppertz for Fritz Lang's science fiction film 'Metropolis' from 1927 and the reference to the gender of the movie's machine person.

Städel Mixtape #5 is a listening pleasure with art and music historical thoughtfulness!
The next edition will be released tomorrow on 20 February at first directly at byte.fm before it's published one week later at staedelmuseum.de/de/mixtape-podcast. It's announced that all podcasts will be included as work information in the digital collection of the Städel Museum.

Image: Visual for STÄDEL MIXTAPE #5 Bettina von Arnim – Hosenträger (1970), ein Podcast des Städel Museums in Kooperation mit ByteFM.