Works For Turntable from Stephen Cornford on Vimeo.
Digital sound, and electronic sound in general, can become abstract. In fact, sound itself can be abstract. So there’s something beautiful about rendering sound as something kinetic, mechanical, and physical. Watch the hypnotic works by Stephen Cornford, top; as the video progresses, the pieces deepen in subtlety. (Thanks to Richard Devine for spotting this one.)
Cornford isn’t the only artist finding new sonic frontiers in the turntable. From a recent event in San Francisco sponsored by our friends at MAKE Magazine, artist Walter Kitundu talks about his own fascination with the turntable and other sonic projects.
Exploratorium multimedia artist, instrument builder, and birder extraordinaire Walter Kitundu talks about his work: he shares the staggering breadth of his work, ranging from a multitude of turntable-based instruments to shadow paintings, and to finish gives a premiere performance on his brand new instruments, a digital kora.
That’s just one video at an event that also included digital music software artist Ge Wang and acoustic instrument maker Krys Bobrowski. Youngsters at the event also got to solder contact mics and go experiment in the space – a nice idea, and one I hope we exploit for an upcoming Handmade Music Night (here in NYC, but elsewhere, too). I have my own preferred quick-and-dirty Radio Shack contact mic procedure, but if anyone has other ideas, pipe up.
Well worth checking out the whole event – and nice that they shot high-quality video.
Open MAKE at the Exploratorium: Exploring sound
Meet the Makers: Walter Kitundu from Learning Studio on Vimeo.