The physical value of sound
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News from the graduate summer show at the Royal College of Art in London.
Quite a few projects made my day over there. The ones of Yuri Suzuki for example. That guy is so talented it should be illegal. He's an artist, musician and now a fresh graduate from the Design Products department. His project is concerned with revamping and giving new forms and meanings to the almost obsolete turntable, a device which very few of us still have in their house. We don't buy disks of CDs anymore either. Nowadays music is more abstract and immaterial than ever. Sound has been reduced to data.
Sound Chaser looks like a little toy train that rides on record rails. You can align and connect each chipped pieces of second-hand records one to another and compose a new track that the train will play.
The TipTap, developed in collaboration with Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, is a little hammer that reveals the dormant sounds around us. A small metal tapper housed in the object taps out a rhythm on any object or surface that you hold it near to. The rhythm is set either by the user or can be defined by the controller. Alternatively, a beat can be taken from your favourite record, allowing you to play along while keeping perfectly in time. The TipTap can also synchronise with other users to make a social tapping experience.
The Prepared Turntable is an analogue answer to the digitalized DJ. The turntable has 5 tone arms, each of which can have its volume controlled by its own fader. Users can make or play music with special loop groove records.
The Finger Player is a wearable record player. Insert your fingers into one of the little rings, play the record just by holding your hand over the disk and feel the physicality of making sound.
Sound Jewellery conceives sound as something precious that you can offer to a friend or wear as a memory of a shared laugher, a romantic conversation, any sound moment from your daily life. The record is made up of components which of course you can play but they can also be worn as bracelet, brooch or other pieces of jewellery. Related: Turntable Orchestra, Computer/Turntable hybrid, The Turnatable Microwave, video turntable, the Tri-phonic Turntable, etc. All images courtesy of Yuri Suzuki. |
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great work. we seem to have some ideas in common. Here's the talking engagement I made
http://lukejerram.com/gifts/Talking_Ring.htm
all the best
from one dreamer to another
Luke Jerram
Icaro Zorbar is another very talented Colombian artist working in similar projects.
http://icarozorbar.wordpress.com/ If you like this kind of work you should check his blog.
This is also similar to the work of artist Walter Kitundu who has a series "phonoharps", which are multi-stringed instruments made from record players. See http://www.kitundu.com/instruments.html for his work.
lovely, just lovely
My first impression is: yeah, great project. I love very much the styling and the presentation. The literal sound track is powerful.
But a closer inspection reveals the concept is even more 'obsolete' than the traditional vinyl record player. Simply because it miss one focal direction.
As an exploration and experiment, it is seemingly not a new area, but the project is outstanding. However, the outcomes lack of a strong, own typology. Because somehow the project only degrades existing archetypes. Sticking up a pick-up element on your finger is fairly called scratching by us dj's. The controlled smashing up of records into bits and pieces to create new sounds and experiences has a stronger analogy called mixing and sampling.
My two points are (1) I just don't see myself cutting up my physical, highly valuable rare and hard to find records; (2) 'Preprepared Turntable' sounds worse than a digital thing. I bet it is very interactive, skillful and engaging in its use, but the title suggest it is truly not intended for the otherwise digital dj's in the first place; as suggested in the rationale.
In the context of nostalgia and reusing stuff, this project is excellent.