Playback

Case Studies & Strategies for the Reinvention of Physical Media


MFA Thesis at California College of the Arts

While streaming music revenues are up year over year, the corporate streaming model is cannibalizing the value of all but a tiny fraction of recording artists.

From the early to mid 19th century, the human race has been enchanted with, perhaps even hypnotized by–our technological ability to record and play back images and sound; to create a permanent record of our individual and collective experiences, distilled to pure sensorial information. Media is the name given to this ever-changing technology, which affords us a powerful mirror of ourselves and our culture.

I’m interested in bringing some of the qualities of the analog age which we seem to have lost, back into the digital age; that of materiality, physicality, tactility, intentionality, personality, permanence, and playfulness.

Playback: Case Studies and Strategies for the Reinvention of Physical Media serves as a critical analysis and critique of culture and commerce in our digitally mediated and dematerialized era, as well as a series of formal and methodological process-driven investigations, exploring the re-embodiment of tactile, analog nature in parallel realms of sound and vision.

Cymatics

Prototypes

Set of 4 records designed to stack on top of each other to make a playlist. Records were designed to be played backwards in order to be able to travel from the inside out, stepping down to the next record. It’s counterpart, the lockable playlist record, used concentric rings that locked together and could be interchanged. In addition, both record sets were designed with complimentary program material so that when played together they make a full stereo composition.