#ArTEEtude 359 - Detlef Schlich reflects on Ballydehob's alternative artistic heritage, the informal social dynamics of traditional Irish music sessions, and his participation in a filmmaking workshop in Schull. It also examines how an unsettling encounter disrupted my initial sense of security and how creative practice helped him regain confidence. The episode concludes with Under Every Roof, a new song by Los Inorgánicos inspired by a German proverb about the troubles hidden beneath every roof.
ArTEEtude 359 – Ballydehob: Under Every Roof, There's a Sigh
What happens when the place you hoped would become home reveals its darker side?
In this personal solo episode, visual artist and podcast host Detlef Schlich returns to Ballydehob, West Cork, in 2008.
From a spacious former hostel and an immediately evicted television to Irish traditional music sessions transformed by four enthusiastically played spoons, Detlef recounts the humor, contradictions, and unexpected challenges of finding his feet in Ireland.
He explores Ballydehob's alternative artistic heritage, a weekly filmmaking workshop in Schull, his first Irish website commission, and a disturbing pub encounter that challenged his sense of belonging.
At the heart of the episode lies an old German saying:
Unter jedem Dach ist auch ein Ach.
Under every roof, there's a sigh.
A reflection on resilience, creative identity, and the realization that finding home doesn't mean finding paradise.
PLUS: WAW – Stories of Wes Cork
Detlef shares plans for another Cape Clear recording visit and discusses how he and musical collaborator Dirk Schlömer are exploring traditional Irish instruments, island field recordings, and Irish-language vocals for their upcoming single When the Tide Knocks at Your Door.
The recording may also become a prototype supporting their forthcoming Artist Bursary application.
ENDING SONG: Los Inorgánicos – Under Every Roof
NEXT EPISODE: A turning point that led Detlef to stop smoking, and the beginnings of the Ballydehob Social Club.
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Your Detlef.
About Detlef Schlich
Detlef Schlich is a rock musician, podcaster, visual artist, filmmaker, ritual designer, and media archaeologist based in West Cork, Ireland.
His artistic practice moves between performance, photography, painting, sound, installation, film, music, podcasting, and digital image-making. Across these fields, Schlich reflects on the human condition, the relationship between ritual and technology, and the changing role of the artist in digital culture.
As a media archaeologist, he explores how media shape perception, memory, culture, politics, and artistic expression. His work often uses the figure of the digital shaman as an alter ego — a method for navigating the space between ancient ritual structures, contemporary media, and technological transformation.
Research & Artistic Method
Detlef Schlich’s artistic research is rooted in his essay Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture: Cause and Effect, which investigates the relationship between ritual, artistic transformation, media, and digital culture.
Download here for free:
Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture: Cause and Effect
Building on this foundation, Schlich developed Multilayerism: A New Paradigm in Contemporary Art – A Manifesto, an artistic method and conceptual framework for understanding contemporary art through layers of media, memory, technology, ritual, emotion, misunderstanding, and lived experience.
Read here:
Multilayerism: A New Paradigm in Contemporary Art – A Manifesto by Detlef Schlich
Together, these texts form the theoretical backbone of Schlich’s ongoing work as a visual artist, media archaeologist, ritual designer, musician, and host of the Arteetude podcast.
WEBSITE LINKS
Music Projects
WAW / Wild Atlantic Way
WAW is the music project by Detlef Schlich and Dirk Schlömer.
Official YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@WAWBand
From the forthcoming WAW album The Stories of Nil Young
Two songs from WAW’s developing album project The Stories of Nil Young form part of a mythopoetic journey along the Nile, where river, memory, loss, cooperation, and hope flow into music.
AfricaSmile follows the Nile as an imagined journey from its sources to the Mediterranean Sea — a river of memory, movement, rhythm, and myth. The song turns the meeting of the White Nile and the Blue Nile into a fragile image of cooperation. It is not a naïve peace anthem, but a wounded musical hope: two different currents meeting, listening, and still moving forward together.
Watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnQbsh01YWU
The Nile’s Bittersweet Song is the first official single by WAW / Wild Atlantic Way — Detlef Schlich and Dirk Schlömer.
The song follows the Nile as a river of memory, beauty, loss, and contradiction: a life-giver, but also a force that can take away what it once nourished. Through the story of Kamau, it becomes a poetic reflection on childhood, fragile hope, and the emotional landscape carried by a river that is both kind and cruel.
Inspired by East African storytelling traditions and shaped along the Wild Atlantic Way in West Cork, The Nile’s Bittersweet Song is a mythopoetic musical journey about water, grief, resilience, and the deep human longing to keep moving with the current.
Watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33AWko4IkKI
WAW on Bandcamp
Silent Night
In a world shadowed by conflict and unrest, Dirk Schlömer and Detlef Schlich felt compelled to reinterpret Silent Night to reflect the complexities and contradictions of modern life.
https://studiomuskau.bandcamp.com/track/silent-night
Wild Atlantic Way
This song emerged from a trip to West Cork, Ireland, where the beautiful coastal Wild Atlantic Way stretches along the west coast.
https://studiomuskau.bandcamp.com/track/wild-atlantic-way
YouTube
Silent Night Reimagined – A Multilayered Avant-Garde Journey by WAW aka Dirk Schlömer & Detlef Schlich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAbytLSfgCw
Detlef Schlich
I love West Cork Artists Group
YouTube Channels
visual Podcast
official Website
Tribal Loop
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