Schwierigkeiten beim Umschalten (1979)

Ti­tle of the album: Der Ball ist rund - Schwierigkeiten beim Umschalten
Ti­tle: Schwierigkeiten beim Umschalten (Track 02)
La­bel: Edition RZ, Berlin
Da­te: 1979, publ. 1987
Me­di­um: re­cord/picture disc 30 cm

Schwierigkeiten beim Umschalten ( Difficulties Switching) is the second track on the album, whose first title, Der Ball ist rund, is already presented at this point.

Ror Wolf had a long passion for radio. Not only did he participate in this medium as a listener, but he also occupied himself as a radio producer. Thus, some of his radio plays have been broadcast on radio. He also used recordings of radio broadcasts as a starting point for further artistic treatment. In the radio collages, Wolf assembled the most diverse, but always related, original sounds of journalistic radio speakers and thus created analytical detailed images of the radiophonic transmission of information.

Football in particular, which is usually conveyed on the radio via a commentator, was Wolf's artistic focus. With the statement: "The world is not a football, but in football, it is no secret, there is a whole lot of world", Ror Wolf underlined his efforts to integrate football intensively into his literary work. In the 1970s, he created various football collages, of which Der Ball ist rund and Schwierigkeiten beim Umschalten are two of the best known. He described his work as follows: "I have linked four apparatuses together and there I have linked this material that I have recorded, recorded myself on the football field, in the stadium, in the dressing rooms with the players, from the radio, the reports. It's one of the main traits I have as a writer, persistence and consistency, radicality. If I want to do something, I do it. Of course, there is manipulation involved, splitting, contraction, recomposition of sentences, sequences of sentences and sequences of play. The enormous whirlpools of words, the surges and crashes are squeezed into a very small space. The suction, the steam of reportage is used. The rituals of speech, their characteristic metaphor, their drama."

More radio collages by Ror Wolf: 

• Die heiße Luft der Spiele, director: Günter Guben, Ror Wolf, SDR 1972.
• Die Stunde der Wahrheit, director: Ror Wolf, HR 1974.
• Schwierigkeiten beim Umschalten, director: Ror Wolf. HR 1978.
• Rückblick auf große Tage, director: Ror Wolf, HR 1978.
• Merkwürdige Entscheidungen, director: Ror Wolf, HR 1979.
• Die alten Zeiten sind vorbei, director: Ror Wolf, HR 1979.
• Expertengespräche, director: Ror Wolf, HR 1979.
• Heinz, wie ist Deine Ansicht?, director: Ror Wolf HR 1979.
• Cordoba Juni 13 Uhr 45, director: Ror Wolf, HR 1979.