Over the summer break I have developed an interest in using magnetic tape, I have always fancied creating something sound-based as most of my work to date has involved moving image.
Here are some pages from my sketchbook:
STATEMENT OF INTENT
For my minor project I will be exploring physical computing through the use of Arduino technology and/or basic electronic mechanisms. My project will consist of a sound-based installation utilising the qualities of magnetic audio tape. I desire to use this medium because of its potential to be used experimentally, taking advantage of it's aesthetic, physicality and manipulability. I will be mostly experimenting with how magnetic tape can be played back using unconventional means, extracting a tape head from an already existing audio product and utilising it in a creative and experimental manner.
My installation will contain a series of motor's and track's (taken from disused printers) mounted on a panel in front of the spectator. Within the print head I will install a tape head and on the track, a strip of tape. The tape head's will be taken from various tape-based technologies, such as cassette players, answering machines, dictaphones and reel to reel players. I will use the lo-fi acoustics of the different machines to emphasise the fact that this technology, which was once universal, is now rapidly becoming obsolete in a digital era of crystal-clear sound.
The tape that I choose will be segments of a recorded short narrative or poem. The spectator will be able to control the movement of the tape head's across the strips of tape by controlling the motors using a panel of buttons, switchers and/or potentiometers. The separation of the narrative will encourage the spectator to create cohesion by controlling the motor's in the correct order. This references the idea that a machine is only as cohesive as it's creator makes it, and these technologies, which are designed to play a consistent replica of a message or piece of music can be broken down and deconstructed due to their vulnerability as a physical object, however, questioning whether this is any different to the vulnerability of modern day audio files which can just as easily become corrupted, remixed or deleted.
Points of Reference:
Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller
Theory:
The theory I will be referring to and in which my piece will belong is postmodernism, particularly the use of old and new, high and low.
Jameson - 'postmodernism & consumerist society' in The Anti-Aesthetic
Jenkins - Convergence Culture: Where Old and new media collide
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