For my sonic response to the last workshop, we had with Ingrid, I decided to use an obsolete media that I was familiar with after attempting to work with minidiscs. For my response, I made multiple tape loops and recorded them as the base for my composition. For the main loop, I made a Mobius strip loop which lasted around 12 seconds, from some old tape I had not used.
I placed this over a field recording of some birds in the countryside and noticed that it produced an almost meditative soundscape of natural sounds juxtaposing the mechanical analogue imperfections of the tape recorder. I then recorded some guitar over the recording and loops to flesh out the composition rather than it becoming a three-minute dissociative trance, but I still feel it has a meditative quality to it.
Link to the Audio:
When thinking about how I can make sustainable sound art, I am in two minds on whether making this type of art, using obsolete technologies is really a sustainable practice? On one side I have used an old technology that many people would consider just landfill, and I have prevented that from happening and therefore being sustainable. But on the other hand what will happen now that I have made this? I do work with tape quite a lot and usually, any leftover tape from my loops or splicings get thrown away, I have only saved a 5-10 second portion of what once was a 90-minute tape. I would also like to consider what will happen to my recorders and players once I have finished with them or they break. It will most likely just end up as landfill again. By making art from the obsolete I don’t feel that I am necessarily being sustainable, I feel more like I am just acting as a buffer for the inevitable.