The title No False Echoes refers to Dutch colonial policies on the first radio connections between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies – present-day Indonesia – in which the Philips broadcasting company for the Dutch Indies (PHOHI) as well as the transmitter Radio Kootwijk played a role. These policies aimed at preventing any unwanted voices or ideas from entering the colonial broadcasting spectrum, specifically nationalist ideology from the Indonesian republicans. No False Echoes proposes that similar attitudes are still present in current debates in the Netherlands. The work was filmed at Radio Kootwijk with an invited audience and speakers who cite from this history as well as conversing spontaneously about these issues.

Salah Edin is a rapper whose lyrics often deal with issues of the social perception of exclusion of immigrants within Dutch society. He raps in Dutch and Arabic. The Dutch politician Geert Wilders, in his 2008 film Fitna, mistakenly used a photo of Edin to depict Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of film-maker Theo van Gogh.

Edwin Jurriëns is a lecturer at The University of New South Wales, Canberra and author of books including From Monologue to Dialogue: Radio and Reform in Indonesia (2010). His research focuses on radio and other forms of Indonesian popular media in the context of globalisation.

Wim Noordhoek is a Dutch radio programmer, journalist and author; since 1967 he has regularly made programmes that give alternative music serious airtime. In 2000 Noordhoek made a series of programmes for VPRO radio about the PHOHI, using the original recordings, thathad been preserved on 78s by the Philips Concern Archives.

Baukje Prins is Associate Professor of Citizenship and Diversity at the Hague University of Applied Sciences and author of Beyond Innocence: The Debate on Integration in the Netherlands (2004) and Accidental Classmates, Life Stories at the Intersection of Ethnicity, Class, Gender and Religion (2014).

Joss Wibisono is Chief Editor of the Indonesian Section of Radio Netherlands where he has worked since 1987 and is an expert on Dutch-Indonesian relations with an emphasis on the influence of gamelan (Balinese and Javanese traditional music) on Western music. He wrote his PhD dissertation on Soewardi Soerjaningrat.

Lina Campanella was an eight-year-old singer at the time of filming, having just started her training in the national youth choir Vocaal Talent Nederland.



Stills


Installation view of As Occasions, solo presentation at Tent. Rotterdam, 2008. Photographs by Bob Goedewaagen



Installation view of Hinter den Vierten Wand, Generali Foundation, Vienna, 2010


Installation view of tono lengua boca, 2019, solo presentation at CA2M, Madrid. Photograph by Paula Caballero