Circuit: Flesh: Flux: Massaging the Literal Audio Architecture of Liberated Circuits
In 1982,
I created this set of recordings informally, using a stereo microphone
only.
I was
working as a laborer doing commercial construction and maintenance
for a large retailer. I managed to sneak a couple of "VHS Videocassette
Players" onto the roof from the stockroom below, and convince
a friend to assist in the "liberating" of the machines from
the grip of corporate control.
I had left the decks hidden on the rooftop of the shopping complex.
We drove and parked across a field from the building and snuck to
the back wall, near the shipping and recieving doors. I climbed to
the roof while my accomplice stood watch below. I brought some wire
which I wrapped around the boxes and lowered them to my cohort on
the ground. While lowering the second deck, it snagged on my glove
material, and shaking it loose caused the wire to snap, sending the
deck hurtling to the asphalt below. I watched in horror as my trusted
comrade quickly stepped out of the way letting the box crash with
a carboard and styrofoam thud. I can't say that I blame him. Crime
surely was not paying that evening, and for his part, my friend walked
away with the only functioning unit.
This left me with a severely, yet not visibly damaged videocassette
player, which I promptly pulled apart, removing the large circuit
board from its machinic entrails which now lay scattered across my
tiny apartment's floor.
I had recently "borrowed" an old analog MXR drum machine,
an Ibanez digital delay unit and a Function Generator (which is a
piece of test equipment that can generate a number of waveforms along
a huge frequency range). The plan was to "coax" audio from
the inherent architecture of the raw disemboweled circuit board, which
was wired into a sort-of "no-input" feedback loop using
a 3-head cassette deck. Then, we'd "play" that "source"
in real-time using various (and indeterminate) combinations of the
equipment on hand.
Realizing
that I'd likely have a few too many knobs to twist, and with the possibility
of serious electric shock looming before me, I called another collaborator
and we were soon neck deep in "circuitous audio architecture",
acting as midwives to the messy birth of "uninitended (de)compositions".
Armed
with a set of alligator clips wired to phone plugs, and the aforementioned
gear, we proceeded to "jam" Clara Rockmore style, waving
our hands, touching and "clipping in" to various parts of
the board, while twiddling the available knobs and knobbettes.
In a
literal sense, the audio was generated from the architecture of the
circuit board, and the feedback circuit. The sound was amplified and
we monitored it through some cheap speakers. The evenings events were
recorded live to a stereo handheld cassette recorder. The recordings
have been lightly processed.
download:
circuit_board_delay_circuit
6:26
circuit_board_delay_xcerpt
2:57
circuit_board_drumachine
2:32
