From October ’24 to June ’25 I am a radio resident at Stranded.fm: an Utrecht-based experimental radio-platform. I will be hosting five episodes of Romance Utopia: another spill in my ongoing research under the same name, in which I collect, create and respond to images, texts and sounds that muster a sense of romantic decomposition or ineptitude.
For each episode of this show, I choose a classic romantic object and let it disintegrate over the course of an hour, hacking into its recognizability by exaggeration, restriction, imitation, and other kitschy tactics.
In this episode, I share the works of Cecilia Vicuña, Lisa Robertson, and Walter Benjamin's 'Angelus Novus', as well as what it means to dream about angels... with songs by Oneohtrix Point Never, Aretha Franklin, Adrienne Lenker, and more
Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/strandedfm/romance-utopia-w-romy-day-winkel-the-angels-edition-26-october-2024-stranded-fm
Candelight was the name of a Dutch radio show hosted by Jan van Veen between 1967 and 2023, in which Van Veen read love poems sent in by listeners, interspersed with romantic songs.
This episode of Romance Utopia is a partial re-staging of that format, although the poems read are sent in by my bookcase instead, with works of Bernadette Mayer, Audre Lorde, Lyn Hejinian and Anne Carson among others; romantically connected by Voice Actor, White Light, and Ulla songs.
Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/strandedfm/romance-utopia-w-romy-day-winkel-december-21st-2024-stranded-fm
Roses play a classic part in romance and they have since the rise of contemporary romantic ideals. One could see them as mass-produced symbols of love, but one could also try to hack into them. What happens when we slightly alter the gesture of rose-giving or the rose's material qualities? What is the difference between giving a fake rose to a lover instead of a real one?
Throughout this episode I will highlight some works that I understand as an attempt of altettering the more traditional romantic meaning of the rose (for example Gertrude Stein, Eten Adnan, Daisy Lafarge's William Blake, Derek Jarman) interspersed by a selection of songs (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kali Malone, William Basinski) that deal with this object.
Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/strandedfm/romance-utopia-february-15th-2025-stranded-fm
The heart, as a symbol of romantic love, has a history that winds through ancient mythology, medieval manuscripts, and modern pop culture. While today we instantly associate the familiar red heart shape with affection and desire, this wasn't always the case.
In this episode, I go over the historical and biological roots of the heart symbol, towards Eros' wound, Jean-Luc Nancy's heart transplant, and pregnancy and abortion as bodily intrusion via Mia You's poetry.
Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/strandedfm/romance-utopia-w-romy-day-winkel-hearts-episode-april-9th-2025-stranded-fm
Being in love and waiting is irreplaceably linked. The loved one is absent, and the lover fills the void with fantasy, fear, and longing. The waiting becomes unbearable because the lover has no control over the awaited's return. The lover is trapped in time, like a character in a Beckett play, waiting for Godot, waiting for someone who may never arrive.
Moving from Barthes to Bachelard, from On Kawara to Mary Ruefle, I come to understand waiting and its subversive potential, waiting as home, waiting as grief... Interspersed by songs of Milan W., Jenny Hval, Jang Hyun and Kathryn Mohr amongst others.
Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/strandedfm/romance-utopia-w-romy-day-winkel-waiting-june-7th-2025-stranded-fm