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Five Introverted machines

This practice-based research project applies a media archaeological approach to the consumer audio electronics of the recent past. While tape recording technologies have become obsolete for the consumer market, they refuse to become truly dead media, persisting in use and accruing in value. This project looks beyond their nostalgic associations, asking what remains when they are no longer required to perform their functional role. Here the technology becomes the source and content of the work rather than simply the recording medium.

This approach was developed over a series of improvised solo performances at venues including .HBC (Berlin), ArtExSonora (La Coruña), Arnolfini (Bristol), Campbell Works (London), Space 109 (York) and Modern Art Oxford, the results of which were published on a cassette titles Hysteresis released by American label Gifts Nobody Wants. A similar strategy was then applied to a collection of reel-to-reel machines to produce a pair of studio compositions which were subsequently released as the Six Tape Machines LP on Accidie Records.

Five Introverted Machines represents the culmination of this project and the simplest dissolution of its ideas. Five first generation cassette machines are stripped of their casing and hung on the wall so as to defy instant recognition. Their tape heads are removed (a gesture echoing Nam June Paik) but instead of still picking up tape they simply amplify their own electromagnetic emissions. If, as Kittler suggested, the ability of a machine to both record and playback sound brings it “unimaginably close” to self-awareness and consciousness, then this work tries to complete that project.

The piece was installed at Pavillion 0 at the Sigma Foundation in Venice during the 2013 Biennale and was reviewed in print by Neural Magazine and online by The Field Reporter. In 2014 it will be included in Small Sounds at the new COFA gallery in Sydney.