As the world becomes increasingly digital, the experience of listening to music becomes more and more removed from anything tactile. In the completely wired world, everything is on a hard disk, there is nothing to touch or see.
In a live performance, you can see the performer. Listening to a record involves scanning a cover, removing the vinyl, and placing it carefully on a record player. Even a CD has a tactile presence that lets you feel you are holding something tangible.
Developed from 1997, I created a music player encasing “Binary Dust” (with engineer Alexei Blinov on the electronics).
The music player/audio sculpture has a physical playback device embedded within 19Kg of granite. It has no connectors and no buttons – optical controls allow you to play/pause/skip.
A music player
embedded in 19kg solid granite
The object is very precisely in keeping with the organic strength and timelessness of the music. Although the music has organic origins, it has no tactile origins – it is termed “acousmatic”. This listening experience is shifted back to the tactile.
To feel the stone, and play the “release” requires a deliberate action that builds a stronger link between you and a contextualised listening experience – forcing you to take a deliberate action, create a pause, and time to prepare.
The listening experience is then directly associated with the object. You can plug your headphones, or hi-fi, directly into it. For a wire-free experience, you can tune in your radio – it has an embedded FM transmitter. We are currently exploring embedding solar power to remove the need to ‘charge the stone’.
Audio Graffiti
Building on this, we aim to place music and audio in selected public locations. You may encounter it in some places by tuning your radio into the right frequency (remember your mobile phone probably has a built-in radio when you use it with your hands-free headphones) … audio graffiti is around the next street corner, in the park, somewhere close.
These embedded devices will be solar-powered, contain a small local transmitter, and be accessible from your mobile. We’re also working on a version where, if you find a transmitter, you can upload your own audio to it for others to listen to – leave your music, comments, and messages for the next person to discover.
Please let me know if you are interested in working with us on this.