Leonardo Music
Journal essay [2001]
'Not Necessarily "English
Music": Britain's Second Golden Age"
Volume 11 with Compact Disc
Leonardo Music Journal (LMJ) is a print journal, published annually with an
accompanying compact disc.
LMJ is edited by Leonardo/the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and
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by the MIT Press. Subscriptions and individual issues can be ordered from the
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Edited and Introduced by Nicholas Collins
Articles by: Alvin Lucier, Eddie Prévost, Hugh Davies,
Janek Schaefer, Joe Banks, Robin Rimbaud,, Michael
Parsons,
Coriœn Aharonin, Sarah E. Walker, Matthew Sansom,
Ranulph Glanville, Lawrence Casserley and Stuart Jones.
ESSAY:
audiOh! - Appropriation, Accident, &
Alteration
The stories of Recorded Delivery, the Tri-phonic Turntable and
Eccentric/Fragmented Vinyl.
Janek Schaefer: written spring 2001
ABSTRACT
The major theme that runs through my work as a sound artist/musician, up to
this point, is the appropriation and alteration of sound and its existing
audio reproduction systems. The projects I refer to in the title all use familiar
devices in ways which both usurp and extend their inherent characteristics and
imperfections. As ideas they all re-examine the use of the ready-made, be it
with objects or sounds. Recorded Delivery appropriated a sound-activated dictaphone
to trace the journey of a parcel travelling through the post. The Tri-Phonic
Turntable was invented to accidentally manipulate and discover new
sounds buried within any vinyl terrain and lastly I cut my Wow 7" eccentrically
on the record to induce a fluctuation in the sound play back and thus alter
its fundamental nature.
ARTICLE
The first time I remember being asked what I wanted to be when I grew
up I answered an inventor. My father and grandfather were
both creative scientists, both of whom died regrettably well before they saw
me fulfill this early ambition. The three inventions/ideas I describe in this
article all respond to or answer a particular situation or brief
requiring [in my estimation] an innovative response. This approach is rooted
in my years spent training as an architect both at Manchester Polytechnic and
latterly at the Royal College of Art where my projects specialised in the relationship
between sound, space and place. I believe then, that I have been trained
to [re] examine the world around me and formulate new solutions and responses
based on those observations. With this in mind my work as a sound artist/musician
re-examines the use of the ready-made, its appropriation and alteration,
both in terms of sound and its related reproduction technologies. Through working
in this manner I have utilised familiar devices in ways which both usurp and
extend their inherent characteristics and imperfections.
In my working technique, the enabling of accidents is of paramount importance,
both through the planning, and the execution of ideas. I am very much dedicated
to the act of processing, allowing the original idea to develop itself and letting
that process or intuitive interaction guide the project. In Recorded Delivery
the sound activated function of the Dictaphone was appropriated to create a
random and accidental condensing of time during its journey. The sound
it encountered would be its guide and master. The Tri-Phonic Turntable is inversely
a schizophrenic interpreter of the physical record, also with a
personality of it's own, but one which can be curated and taught by the operator.
It is a multiple and variable accident making machine. It too has the ability
of compressing [musical] time, but also possesses the ability to expand it.
For my Wow 7" the standard cutting and playback technique developed over
the years to achieve an accurate sonic representation on vinyl was fundamentally
altered.
It has always been my objective to reveal through experimentation the new potential
bound within existing sound systems. There are of course many overlaps
between the areas of appropriation, accident & alteration by
which I have chosen to categorise my work for this essay, but each project is
guided by a particular approach.
RECORDED DELIVERY: Appropriation
For me the art of installation is guided by the desire to be site-specific.
An Installation in Art terms is by its very nature to be placed in a particular
environment. This environment should be the seed of the idea, its inspiration.
The work should be generated by the specifics of that situation in conjunction
with the general themes of the artist at large. Recorded Delivery was in fact
my first project using sound as the main theme in my work. I had previously
trained as a classical musician at school, but the necessity of achieving a
kind of true representation or limited interpretation of the composition
led me down a cul-de-sac in my creative ambitions. Hence I have developed approaches
that are revealed in this article.
Recorded Delivery began when I encountered an invitation in the lift addressed
to all students at the Royal College of Art. It described a situation essentially,
and asked for reponses. An exhibition of the selections was to be called Self
Storage and curated/run by the Art Angel organisation in conjunction with
Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson. We [the students] were invited to propose an
idea which was to be inspired by the location of the exhibition, a Self-Storage
Centre sited next to Wembley Stadium in London. It was an intriguing prospect,
a building composed of anonymous rooms filled with random clutter from everyday
life invaded by artists. My first thought was instinctively to visit the site
and search out some inspiration derived by the subtleties of the interior and
the act of discovering the space. When I inquired as to when I could do this
I was told that it was impossible for me/everyone to do so. This then presented
quite a problem for me. How could you do an installation that was specific to
the exact space/environment of the installation without even experiencing it?
The answer was quite a simple one as it turned out. The very nature of the building
was itself fascinating. Rooms and rooms filled with boxes of objects that were
often moved from place to place [Image 2]. It was these boxes that were the
essence of its purpose. So what could be derived from this? They were indeed
specific to each room, and to all but their owners, a secret. Each room and
each box was a mystery lying dormant, and each of these boxes had been taken
from a specific destination to arrive at this new location. This was the genesis
of my idea.
By simply sending an object to the designated room of my proposed installation,
I would actually be creating a site-specific work. How to make this an interesting
reality was the next stage. I imagined that these parcels had stories to tell
us about their history. Stamps and addresses told only a fraction of this story.
By being able to record its journey I would then be creating
an interesting level of information for the audience, one that was previously
unknown. An audio record is a method of doing this within the framework of real-time,
but presents the technological difficulty of how to capture up to 15 hours of
data [for an overnight delivery]. Even if it was easily and cost effectively
achievable, the result would be, in my opinion, too drawn out and pedestrian.
Moments of sonic interest would be dispersed too widely for a drifting audience.
The problem of how to condense this time element started me thinking
of suitable.
The invention of the voice activated function in dictaphones/tape
recorders was intended to enable recordings of information in a stationary context.
What interested me about this function was firstly its automation and secondly
that the sound level itself was taken to be the important determinant. Loud
or Interesting sounds were given a status, and calm or silence was
ignored which was of obvious use to me. The tape recorder itself would automatically
edit the recording, allowing an essential selection to be made influenced
by the fundamental specifics of the proposed journey itself. It would in essence
produce a truncated impression of its trip rather than a perfect
document. In my research of what was available on the high street I found a
Panasonic model which used full size standard cassettes, and as these could
record up to 120 minutes it was an ideal solution [image 3]. Not only could
it be used to record inside the parcel, but also play back during the installation
and thus create a vital visual and conceptual link for the audience. What was
also extremely useful about this model was the level function, which
was like a hearing aid for the recorder. This sensitivity dial could be rather
crudely tuned to pick up only the right levels of sonic events.
These included the vibration caused by the actual handling of the parcel itself
while on its journey and the atmospheric sound events heard throughout its trip.
Through very rudimentary tests I set about preparing the dictaphone for its
inaugural journey. Using blue-tack I fixed the sensitivity dial to where I hoped
would be the best setting for all the unknowable sound events yet to be encountered.
I manufactured a purpose built cardboard parcel covered in standard brown packaging
tape. A special hole was made in the cardboard lid to allow the microphone to
be fixed to the underside of the thin film of packaging tape. By doing so, the
sounds from outside the parcel could be most clearly captured, and the very
fact that this was happening was thus disguised from the prying eyes of the
post office workers. I addressed and posted the sealed parcel from the local
post office, and waited for the results overnight. [image 4]
On collecting it from Acorn Self-Storage the following day I returned to the
studio at college to discover the results. Firstly the dictaphone had recorded
only just over an hour of sound, and not, as I had feared run out of tape. Secondly
it was an exciting experience listening back to it, discovering for the first
time the secrets within. The actual quality of the sounds were good, and an
interesting, persistent sound punctuated the recording; the sound of the tape
starting up and stopping. Listening all the way through it was clear that it
had captured the whole range of atmospheres and events possible. Staff behind
counters, sliding van doors, distant radios, singing postmen, vans in
transit, clunks of the package, and by far the most exciting and unexpected
sound of the early shift sorting staff swearing profusely about their alleged
previous nights sexual exploits. The recording took us all the way to the parcel
being signed for at the self-storage centre.
The presentation of this information and the concept was fairly simple. I enclosed
the tape recorder in a transparent floating plinth with the open
parcel either side of it divulging and shedding its contents to reveal the mystery
[image 5]. The installation was set up as a series of clues which pieced together
the whole story. If you were inquisitive you could easily understand the process
and concept by listening and looking. [image 6]
A few years later this recording was released as part of a 7" series on
Hot Air records. The total recording was for this purpose subjectively edited
in order to fit it on the format and consequently further maximise the highlights.
The A side contained the evening part of the journey, and the B side the morning
sorting and arrival. This was released in an edition of 500 pressed in Post
Office red vinyl. To conclude, it may be interesting to note that when I conceived
and executed Recorded Delivery I was concurrently designing a new Post Office
building for my architecture course. This installation was certainly enlightening
research into its interior realm.
THE TRI-PHONIC TURNTABLE: Accidents & Abstraction
The story behind this project was quite simply the epiphany of my musical aspirations.
As I have described earlier, I played a lot of music at school, but to create
music had always been a desire. At the RCA I was still just contemplating this.
Back in 1995, the record label Touch had organised an afternoon
concert in the college, with a line up including the primal electronics of Panasonic
[ref 1], the ethereal field recordings of Chris Watson [ref 2] and the vinyl
transformations of Philip Jeck [ref 3]. This collection of artists and each
of their performance/lectures was a true revelation. The blend of these three
approaches to sound generation and manipulation was, in due course, to become
the blue print for my own working methods. It appeared that most of the audience
didnt really know what had hit them, while I was enthralled by it all.
The work of Philip Jeck in particular was, to me, an incredible example of creating
something from nothing. He performed an improvisation using a few aging
records in conjunction with a collection of basic effects modules. He conjured
up before me a powerful other world of surrounding sounds, developed in the
heat of the moment. I made the leap and went to talk to him afterwards to find
out more and went home inspired. A few days later I was to find out from my
mother that Philip was actually an old family friend and I had known him from
my childhood.
Shortly after leaving college I was invited to create a soundtrack for a group
art show called Public Views 2 curated by the Urban Salon, an architectural
collaborative, and friends from the RCA. It was to be my first serious musical
commission. I had little time to gather my thoughts and decided that the bright
shiny Roland Groovebox MC303 might provide a suitably swift solution.
This was a very flexible all in one type sequencing device which
provided numerous sound samples of some of the more Popular Music
type sounds. I was a fan of Electronica music through college and this was my
musical heritage [I had little knowledge of experimental music at
that time]. I created a soundtrack by using it to perform live collages of polyrhythmic,
overlapping and pulsing tracks pushing its performance capabilities to
the edge of its limitations I felt. The results fitted well with the exhibition,
but neither the experience nor the sounds were conceptually driven or fulfilling.
I see now that I was primarily restrained by an admittedly naïve notion
that in order to create a soundtrack I had to make it sound like
a familiar form of music. This was then to prove a useful lesson
and turning point in my understanding of what the function and potential of
Sound rather than Music could actually be. Returning
to consider my next move in light of these realisations I threw my hands in
the air and the Groovebox in the bin. I realised that it was a dead end to be
using a finite set of pre programmed sounds in this fashion. I had used it up
and spat it out. Not to my taste! I was also wanting to move into a beatless
space conceptually, formed from a sound palette which was new to the world.
My thoughts filtered back to vinyl and the techniques of Philips performance.
I decided that I wanted to develop radically altered collages from the limitless
potential offered by the manipulation and abstraction of readymade and found
sound sources.
It has always been a principle of mine to not copy ideas, but to bounce from
them in order to develop new ones instead. Not to xerox, but manipulate in order
to produce something new and unique to yourself. As a result one develops ones
own ideas which then form a series of personal stories which is much more rewarding
an experience
Records, as opposed to tapes and CD's are the most visually and physically accessible
forms of sound reproduction. Records are an open air affair. The
sound is laid out before you. The potential to change this physical surface
is obvious. One of the most important characteristics of sound is that it is
temporal so it takes time, space and surface to reveal and store it. The history
of the record has itself left vast amounts of vinyl lying dormant across the
globe where virtually any sound that you could want to use is awaiting rediscovery,
accidental encounters and unknown uses. It was obvious to me that it was a desirable
mine field of unlimited potential to create new sounds from these sources. I
decided to take the work of Philip as my cue, and in particular his installation/performance
Vinyl Requiem. This utilised 180 old Dansette record players which
were mounted on a vertical scaffold and were all set to play simultaneously.
My idea was very simple which was to do the opposite. Instead of using lots
of record players to play lots of different records I simply thought of combining
several record players in one. The Tri-Phonic was born. As records can be easily
accessed in many time frames/places simultaneously it was to be very efficient
at maximising the potential of obscure vinyl discoveries. This invention could
multiply, magnify and manipulate the essential physical surface of sound in
as many ways as was practically possible. [image 7]
From this initial concept I wasnt quite sure what I was going to do with
it, but I knew that it would be able to fuel my desire to leave the studio and
start performing live. I needed to start pushing myself out into the world and
start making new friends who were interested in a similar type of music. This
idea should then made to be portable and as flexible as it could practicably
be, to spur on the widest exploration of the vinyl surface. It needed to be
compact, so I decided that three arms was an optimum number. I could use each
tone arm for the left, the right and the centre channels of the stereo field.
The revolution speed needed to be as flexible as possible so that any speed
within its boundaries could be set. Micro-variable control. Very importantly
a reverse mode was essential and just for good measure I designed it so that
up to 3 records could be played at once. This was possible by putting a 7"
or 10" on top of an LP on the platter and then by using a central spacer
another disc can be placed above and played by the third arm which I fitted
at a higher level. Practically speaking this covered all potential possibilities
[except one arm playing upside down on the underside of the raised disc]. Finally
I routed the stereo signal from each arm through an integrated mixer to make
it truly self contained.
So I then had to build it. I had no workshop at the time, which determined that
I got the carcass made for me by a flightcase manufacturer. It would then be
self-contained and ready for travelling the world. The realisation of the other
physical elements of the design were able to be undertaken at home quite easily.
It was the electronics that gave me the biggest headache. I had no friends that
could help with the simple circuits that I needed designing. My knight in shinning
armour came in the guise of a shop keeper who resided in the back of Henrys
Audio on Edgeware Rd. I had to try and persuade him more than once to reveal
his electronics wisdom to me. Explaining in rather rudimentary terms what I
wanted to achieve, he eventually handed me a bag of components and scribbled
out the circuit diagram on a scrap of paper. He unceremoniously told me to just
put it together! Considering I had no electronics knowledge and
could not even solder this proved a difficult task. By a painful process of
trail and error I finally worked out the solution and assembled the final design.
At last it worked. From the onset it wasnt clear exactly what I had built.
By chance the platter could revolve from one and a half to seventy-seven and
a half revolutions per minute, so all records could be played as normal before
being altered.
The inaugural world premier was hosted by my friends at the Urban
Salon on my birthday, in a small courtyard adjacent to their tiny office on
a balmy summers evening. This happened also to be located right next to the
studios of Pete the hit maker Waterman [formally of Stock
Aitkin and Waterman]. During the evening I performed some
very rudimentary yet quite explanatory plunderphonic collages which explored
the infinite potential of the Tri-Phonic. The previous night I had discovered
that Kylie Monougues hit I Should be so Lucky [Produced by
Pete Waterman] when played far too slowly sounded remarkably like Rick Astley
[another artist on the same label]. A wonderful and amusing coincidence. At
this point the staff of the recording studio flung open the doors and looked
rather comically and questioningly at the throng of guests watching the proceedings.
Unfortunately Pete wasnt there that night! Another of these early explorations
of the Tri-Phonics ability was to play Michael Jacksons Thriller
with the three needles in the same groove, acting as a raw delay device. On
hearing this, my girlfriend explained quite wonderfully that this fantastic
dance record had been rendered un-danceable! A great summation of the Tri-Phonics
potential. Admittedly these early experiments proved to be slightly gimmicky,
but were an interesting starting point on my journey of discovery which would
lead to my current manifestations.
After several years of developing and honing my playing techniques, moving away
from plunderphonica, the most useful purpose of my turntable has proved to be
when using multiple locked groove records in performance. I have cut my own
Dub-Plates [a one off record] of locked grooves and have used several other
locked groove releases which I play by bouncing the needle around the record,
accessing each groove randomly and working the discoveries into the mix. It
was after all an accidental instrument from birth. This can be done in both
a forceful or calm manner, which is reflected in my developing musical style.
For the first few years when preparing my live performances I took these accidents
and noted down what was happening. I then made up annotated score sheets, which
were sequences of previous accidents [image 8]. I developed these scores slightly
for each performance until I felt that I had recorded an accomplished pair of
successful live scored recordings. By Successful
I mean ones where I had realised all the planned sequences without overt obvious
blunders [in my opinion]. Of course further accidents occurred while performing
live, but this was the purpose - to harness that real-time sense of occasion
[image 9]. The results of this period are documented on the album OUT
[see audiography]. The artwork for this design [image 10] was produced by slicing
up various record covers, and gluing them back together, much in the same vein
as the music.
One subsequent result of my invention and consequent performative development
of the Tri-Phonic Turntable was that I was chosen by Creative Review Magazine
UK as their Sound Designer of the Year in 1999. Since then I have
been performing without pre-determined scores, allowing the soundscape
to develop freely and naturally in the form of an improvisation. The sound sources
are largely derived from my collections of short phrases & events recorded
to mini disc. These are then interwoven around other sonically and visually
stimulating live processes including an ancient turntable and my new Twin
turntable. This is a two tone arm record player that I built to be much more
portable yet retaining the essential characteristics of the Tri-Phonic. I have
also been using software to develop more controlled and detailed compositions
resulting in my first studio album, Above Buildings. This album
was largely created from the studio manipulation and live re-workings of contact
microphone recordings sourced from trips around England, France, Canada and
the USA. The most eloquent way to describe the intentions of my current work
and the results of this CD is by borrowing the words of Forced Exposure who
wrote that Above.Buildings, expands on the familiarity of everyday life,
bringing the enormous, infinite universe down to whisper a secret in your ear.
I was awarded an Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica Digital
Musics competition in 2001 for this work.
ECCENTRIC & FRAGMENTED VINYL: Alteration
My focus on vinyl manipulation developed a new focus in 1999. I was invited
by Diskono records [a Scottish record label collective] to take part in their
Physical Remix series. This was a collection of 7"s which vastly
extended and altered the concept of the remix in musical culture.
The series invites musicians [I was the second] to make a standard 7" record.
This was to be released as normal but then also distributed to a host of both
musical and visual artists, [the remixers]. They were each asked to physically
change the visual and sonic qualities of the disc itself. As the musician at
the start of this process I had then been asked to make a record
in the usual way, but this didnt seem to be questioning the idea far enough
for my liking. I started then to think about the processes of cutting a record
itself to find a new way of altering the sound by changing its relation to the
way records were actually manufactured in the first place. My intention then
was to explore the idea of the physical remix through the record in its initial
form. How to fundamentally alter the medium?
Over the last few years, being a newcomer to the Turntablist pigeonhole,
I have been learning about its history. I enjoyed discovering the shattered
vinyl collages / no packaging works of Christian Marclay, Boyd Rices early
locked groove recordings with alternative holes in the disc and the glorious
1939 composition Imaginary Landscape 1 by John Cage for test tone
record with turntables. Taking these concepts on board and thinking of ways
to progress, I had been experimenting with off-axis holes and test tone
records with the Tri-Phonic, performing three part sine wave chords in development,
made from these individual test tone sounds. This is where my solution was to
emerge from, the complete exploration of the technical flaw known as Wow
[as in Wow and Flutter]. By positioning a record eccentrically under the tone
arm, the disc rotates at varying speeds as the arm moves from side to side,
which then alters the pitch of the sound. This wobbling effect [Wow] is in technical
terms described in the dictionary as, the slow pitch fluctuation in sound
reproduction, perceptible in long notes. If I could actually cut a track
eccentrically on the acetate [the first disc used in the process
of creating a record] itself then the record would rotate normally [symmetrically]
on the player itself, but make the arm wave from side to side inducing the wow
sound. This was both a fundamentally different realisation and technique to
the alternate holes of Boyd Rices Pagan Muzak I felt. It was a playful
idea grounded first in the alteration of the product/process itself and also
its historical precedent. My own physical remix concept had been conceived.
[image 11]
The recording of Wow [the composition] is then a collage of long
declining and slowly rising off-axis fluctuating test tones [recorded from the
Tri-Phonic], with a slowly widening [electronically generated] sine wave and
concluding in a locked groove sourced from a test tone 7". This results
in an organic and mesmeric hybrid, which is to the point and is also essentially
derived from the concept of deviation. After months of telephoning cutting studios
around the country trying to explain what I had in mind, with many puzzled responses,
I finally discovered an open minded engineer in London. On the first side of
the record the composition was cut [almost] conventionally on the acetate, being
symmetrically positioned, but it had no run-in or run-out groove. This produced
a very visually dense and isolated band of sound. In preparation for the all
important eccentric cut I drilled another hole for the spindle of the lathe
just next to the original central one. The same composition was then cut again
around this new hole, with the acetate disc revolving off centre on the platter.
This meant that when this eccentric cut was pressed using the original spindle
hole, the band of sound was automatically positioned eccentrically on the surface
of the 7". Although difficult to explain this is essentially a very simple
process, which I have plans to expand on in due course with overlapping eccentric
grooves at some stage. What proved harder in the end was getting the pressing
plant to realise that the eccentric side was not a mistake. Letters passed back
and forth and eventually they understood that all you had to do was press it
exactly as normal to achieve the result desired. Amazingly though when I received
the final copies the pressing plant had managed to press the normal
side very slightly off-axis as well, so it too wobbled in tone. The whole batch
had to be re-melted and made again.
The 7" was finally released in hand transformed white LP sleeves. The sleeves
were re-cut into 12" by 7" folders with a fold over flap
and contained an addressed envelope inviting the purchaser to send off to receive
a free copy of the second stage physical remixes. The remixes themselves have
been very wide ranging in their approach. The discussion and illustration of
these is outside the scope of this article. They are being documented and archived
by Diskono on their web site which can be found at http://www.findo.freeserve.co.uk
Id like to end by discussing my next project, which should be realised
at some point in the near future. It too involves another newly invented experimental
cutting technique. Titled Skate, this time I am attempting to usurp
the linear nature of the record. Sound, as I have said is a temporal medium,
its always revealed through time, and on a record this is a wide flat
surface, constituting space. Another of the technical functions of the modern
record player is its anti-skate function. This attempts to prevent the tone
arm from unduly sliding across the surface of the disc, which would consequently
place uneven pressure on one side of the stereo stylus. My intention is to break
down these givens and focus on achieving the opposite characteristics. I intend
the needle to skate around a fragmented landscape of separated sound events.
[image 12]
Firstly I intend to cut incomplete revolutions of sound on the acetate. The
potential is there to create scars of sound as short as a centimeter or less,
which is very short in terms of actual playing time [depending on the play back
speed]. They may range from a fraction of a second up to one second at 33.3rpm.
This will by its very nature be a random process, building up a texture of fragmented
and scattered arcs across the land of the record. When it is played,
the needle will stumble into a groove, play the sound and then hit the blank
land of the disc and skate until it discovers its next furrow. This land
will itself have a certain sound imbued in it. This process will then carry
on as the record player, the performer and the disc itself all combine to create
a composition, different every time and theoretically ad infinitum. Depending
on the setting of the tone-arm anti-skate balance, the needle may also lock
into a continuous cycle creating rhythmic repetitive patterns in development.
Different playing speeds and different turntables will determine different compositions.
This is an ideal product for playing on the Tri-Phonic or Twin as all the arms
play simultaneously and at the same speed. The nature of this concept will mean
that all the rhythms created would each be in time with each other. Accidents
I predict will abound.
References:
1. Panasonic, Vakio CD, Blast First Records 1995
2. Chris Watson, Stepping Into The Dark CD, Touch Records, 1996.
3. Philip Jeck, Loopholes CD, Touch Records 1995.Figure Captions:
NOTE: I have supplied two of the images as colour in case they can be used as
such. You may select either or alternatively they can be reproduced in black
and white if appropriate.
Image 1:
AudiOh!
The onomatopoeic logo designed for my own record label. A word which attempts
to embody the approach to my work as a sound artist and musician.
Image 2:
Acorn Self Storage Centre.
An illustration depicting the essence of the self storage facility which was
to inspire the concept for my Recorded Delivery project. The exhibition
Self Storage was produced by the Art Angel organisation and curated
by Brian Eno.
Image 3
Recorded Delivery 1995. Mixed media.
The full sized cassette recorder which I sent through the post to Acorn Self
Storage. By fine tuning its sound activated function I was able to capture 72
minutes worth information from a 16 hour overnight delivery.
Image 4:
Recorded Delivery 1995. Mixed media.
The Recorded Delivery parcel on display in its protective Floating
Plinth.
Image 5:
Recorded Delivery 1995. Mixed media.
The parcel containing the sound activated tape recorder was displayed shedding
its contents so as to reveal the method by which the concept had been realised.
Image 6:
Recorded Delivery 1995. Mixed media.
The audience was encouraged to explore the installation and listen to the secret
sounds revealed during its journey through the post office process. The sounds
were played back to them directly from the tape recorder which had enabled them
to be caught and edited automatically during its delivery.
Image 7:
The Tri-Phonic Turntable. 1997.
My self constructed three tone arm, bi-directional, micro vari-speed, multiple
record player.
Image 8:
Performance Score. 1999.
A typical annotated Score which I used to sequence discoveries made
previously in the studio in order to perform a live soundscape composition.
The results from this process can be heard on my CD OUT [see Audiography]
Image 9:
Scratch, Crackle and Pop.
A performance during an exhibition of Vinyl Art at The Phoenix Gallery
in Brighton, UK, 1998.
Image 10:
OUT CD art work. 1999.
A hand manipulated collage sourced from various record sleeves for the cover
of my debut live CD.
Image 11:
Eccentric Vinyl. 2000.
An illustration depicting the results of my Eccentric Vinyl cutting
technique, initially developed for my Wow 7" release.
Image 12:
Fragmented Vinyl. 2001.
An illustration anticipating the potential of my Fragmented Vinyl
cutting technique. It is anticipated that the needle will skate around the surface
of the record playing the separate short scars of sound randomly.