Villa Aurora Events Archive
February 2026
Villa Aurora X Lookout FM Radio - Episode 14 of "if the house could speak"
Radio LOOKOUT FM
In January of 2025 the Palisades Fire came within feet of Villa Aurora. Miraculously, the house survived, and with it the radio transmitter that broadcasts from there throughout the Santa Monica Mountains and the beaches below.
This series explores the voices, past and present, that reverberate at Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger’s former home. For the past 30 years, Villa Aurora has been an artist residence, a place where exile and expression meet, where history and contemporary events converge.
During the process of rebuilding and awaiting our artists’ return, we will be broadcasting newly produced, archival and historical footage for you to listen to and maybe wonder: Is this really only a house or, like Carl Jung suggests, can the composition of a room induce the realization of new truths?
Each episode of if the house could speak will be broadcast on a loop for 24 hours with no interruption starting at 12 PM Pacific Daylight Time. For our listeners across the world, that corresponds to 7 PM Coordinated Universal Time and 9 PM Middle European Time.
Episode 14
Our Time Is Now
A Guest in Native America - Genoël von Lilienstern
A compilation of original recordings, collected and archival sound materials, and excerpts from Places of Yaanga by Genoël von Lilienstern — compositions for video, audio, flute, saxophone, and synthesizer. Texts by Genoël von Lilienstern.
Composer Genoël von Lilienstern traces a spiral around Villa Aurora, situated on the land of the Tongva First Nation. At various stations along the way, he recalls impressions and encounters with present-day Native American life in the region of Yaanga, now known as Los Angeles.
In the immediate surroundings of the Villa stand oak trees whose acorns once formed the staple food of most Native Americans in temperate North America. Above the Villa, along the Paseo Miramar Trail, rock formations bear Native American names such as Eagle Rock. In these rocks, one can find historical mortar holes used for grinding acorn flour, as well as petroglyphs.
In Santa Monica, Kuruvungna, one of the last sacred springs of the Tongva is said to be threatened by the expansion of a parking lot. Tongva elder Jula gives him a clapper stick and tells him his totem animal is probably a coyote.
During a concert at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, he speaks with the son of Tongva Chief Morales about Mozart. At Topanga Beach, he searches for traces of a former cemetery once adorned with whale bones. Here, he attempts to reverse the movement of the waves and to recognize the voices of the dead in the sound of the Pacific.
In Malibu Creek State Park, fictional layers overlap with the presence of a former village of the Chumash First Nation at the filming location of Planet of the Apes.
He travels into the desert to hear the Bird Songs of the Cahuilla in Morongo, and to the reservation of the Navajo Diné Nation to learn what it means for a Native American language to have survived and to still be spoken in everyday life.
About LOOKOUT FM
LOOKOUT FM is a West Coast terrestrial radio home for the broadcast of "transmission art:" experimental audio composition, modern serials, data sonification, radio plays, multi-day compositions, and radio-centric performances. Their licensed stations in Burbank, Hollywood, and Pacific Palisades function as FM exhibition spaces where radio art is presented without regard to constraints of time, structure, or commercial consideration.
