Stephen Cornford takes an obsolete media format for a spin

Binatone Galaxy

In MP3: The Meaning of a Format, Jonathan Sterne observes "that it is no accident that so many media technologies are built around spinning mechanisms" while pointing to the grooves of a vinyl record and wound-down rolls of audio tape as examples of 'compression technology'. Cassette tapes were expedient as a medium because they compressed an album's worth of music into a durable, portable format that could be played on stereos, walkmans and in automobiles. What if the tape deck's capacity to function as a playback device was stripped away though, what would remain? This is exactly the question posed by Binatone Galaxy, a 2011 installation by Oxford-based media artist Stephen Cornford where the prerecorded content of audio tapes are replaced with microphones.

Sorry, this is Members Only content. Please Log-in.

Join us today by becoming a Member.

• Archive: Access thousands of projects, scores of essays, interviews and reviews.
• Publish: Post your projects, events, announcements.
• Discuss: Join our Discord for events, open calls and even more projects.
• Education: Tutorials (beginners and advanced) with code examples and downloads.
• Jobs Archive: Find employers who have recruited here in the past (over 1,000 jobs).
• Discounts: Special offers and giveaways (events, books and media).
• Ad-Free Reading: No advertisements or banners of any kind.
• Studios/Organisations: Read more about benefits here.

Read More

/++

/+

One comment on “Stephen Cornford takes an obsolete media format for a spin