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Siah Armajani, Arman, Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Iain Baxter, Mel Bochner, George Brecht, Jack Burnham, James Lee Byars, Robert H. Cumming, Francois Dallegret, Jan Dibbets, John Giorno, Robert Grosvenor, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Dick Higgins, Davi Det Hompson, Robert Huot, Alain Jacquet, Ed Keinholz, Joseph Kosuth, Les Levine, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Guenther Uecker, Stan VanDerBeek, Bernar Venet, Frank Lincoln Viner, Wolf Vostell, William Wegman, and William T. Wiley Art by Telephone, 1968
‘The record of the Art by Telephone exhibition was originally a 331⁄3-rpm microgroove vinyl LP record produced in 1968, an analog sound storage medium that was meant to be the catalog of the original exhibition presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago in 1969. The album contains the entire conversations in which thirty-seven conceptual artists each explained one of their artworks orally and discussed on the tele- phone with the director of the museum, Jan van der Marck, how to execute its creation for inclusion in the show. On the cover of the LP album, one can read that, under the supervision of the curator, David H. Katzive, the artworks were thereafter fabricated in Chicago by volunteers or local craftsmen strictly following the artist’s verbal instructions. These works were thereafter displayed in the exhibition space of the Chicago museum. The director explained that they might be understood as processes, situations or information systems initiated by language. It seems that the museum wanted to find a way to foster conceptual art, a movement that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s that consisted of questioning the physical existence of artwork and asserting that art lies in ideas, concepts and language rather than in the production of physical objects.’
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Jasper Johns Scott Fagan Record, 1970
Color lithograph on paper, sheet (sight, irregular)
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Ed Ruscha Unidentified Hit Record, 1977
Drawing
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Jean-Michel Basquiat Now’s the Time, 1985
‘Cut from a large plywood disk, ‘Now’s the Time’ mimics a vinyl pressing of the jazz legend Charlie Parker’s album of the same name.’
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Gregor Hildebrandt Cassette Record, 2008
“I really love that there’s something inside the material that you can’t hear,” he says. “And when you see it, you only see black. You can have your own interpretation of the materials and it does something for your experience.”
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Peter Fischli/David Weiss Record, 1988
‘The record made by Peter Fischli and David Weiss for the deluxe edition of Parkett no. 17 was not produced in a sound studio. Instead it is an object entitled Record but an object that can be played. Those who are not afraid of ruining their record player or rather the needle will hear something like a cross section of average disco music. Average in this case also means decreased quality of sound reproduction – the hi-fi fetish choking on itself.’
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Dani Gal Historical Records, 2005–Ongoing
‘Historical Records is a collection of commercially produced vinyl records that documents recorded political events of the twentieth century. The collection contains over 700 LP’s of speeches and interviews of those who were in power, others who objected to this power, of war and peace agreements, human rights struggles, and other radio broadcasts of the events that shaped history from the invention of the phonograph to the fall of the Berlin wall. The project examines how recorded political events turned into a commodity, and what role sound documentation has in the interplay between personal and collective/national memory.’
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Jack Goldstein A suite of nine 45 rpm 7-inch records with sound effects, 1976 – 1980
‘In 1976 artist Jack Goldstein began producing a series of audio works on vinyl records, the first of which was a suite of nine 45 rpm 7-inch records with sound effects. The 45s were paired with titles suggestive of their audio content and pressed in colored vinyl visually related to the sounds and their titles
‘The sounds in Jack’s records were images he had wanted to make into films. The physical presence and color of each record was important. A sound recording of a tornado was rendered in purple vinyl, for example, since he observed that purple was the color of tornadoes when photographed.’
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Deborah Pendell Generation X & Y Warped, 2022
Photographs
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Ray Johnson Untitled (Skeeter Davis), 1985
enamel pen on vinyl record
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Christian Marclay Record Players, 1984
‘In Christian Marclay’s Record Players vinyl records are scratched, rubbed together, broken–everything but played on a turntable–and the forest of sounds beautifully matches the dense images of bodies and discs.’
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Kouichi Okamoto Pendulum Sound Machine, 2011
‘created as an instrument, this device subverts a record player’s rotation to make noise with 16 plate-hitting pendulums.’
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Robert Whitman Sounds for 4 cinema pieces, 1968
‘Red flexible disc edited for an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in April 1968. Text printed in red presenting the four films presented for the first time in this exhibition: Window “(1963),” Shower “(1964),” Dressing Table “(1964), and” Sink “(1964).’
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Sean Duffy Various, 2009 – 2019
‘Duffy seeks a full removal from the original. The sounds that emerged from his triple turntable were not reproduced products but altogether separate by-products; the principal is always absent. Duffy employs dated material to create always-new amplified sounds. The system is structured on cyclical reuse, yet in its incessant circulation there is a constant deferral of repeated performance. Duffy seeks the materiality of that allusion.’
Blue
Unknown Leisure
Spider and the Fly
Set Free
Slide the Touch
Can’t Stop It
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Jeroen Diepenmaat Pour des dents d’un blanc éclatant et saines, 2005
‘Stuffed birds produce sounds on eight record players, their beaks functioning as the pick-up needles. The sound they produce is that of the birds themselves: birdsong recorded on records. In this installation the mediated sound – recorded through a technical medium – is again returned to nature. Only the nature has lost all its naturalness; the birds are no longer alive. Nevertheless, they appear to live, producing the same sounds they once did, seeming to communicate with one another in a vital manner.’
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Carlos Aires Danzad, danzad, malditos, 2009
‘Vinyl records have attracted visual artists for decades. Cover art has dominated and received the greatest attention, but also the material itself – the vinyl – has become a subject for growing aesthetic consideration. The contemporary Spanish artist Carlos Aires is best known for his photographs as well as his sculptures and other works made of recycled vinyls. Aires is often associated with his vinyl record cutouts, which he assembles in large numbers for exhibitions. All the cut vinyl record silhouettes are hand-cut and unique.’
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Gianluca Paludi Vinyl Bathroom, 2018
‘The Vinyl bathroom collection by Gianluca Paludi for Olympia Ceramica is a contemporary reimaginging which playfully melds the classic wooden 70’s record consoles and DJ turntables. Featuring feature a recessed ceramic sink basin, the console sinks even come equipped with volume adjusting knobs for hot and cold water as well a tone arm faucet. DesignMilk reports despite not being to actually “play” on this bathroom collection, but the wooden base supporting the basin(s) includes a storage drawer that houses a Bluetooth-controlled speaker to sync with your music storage device of choice.’
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Andy Warhol Giant Size $1.57 Each, 1963
‘Record album featuring interviews with Artists Participating in The Popular Image exhibition at The Washington Gallery of Modern Art, 1963’
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Rose Eken “Some Girls,” from the series “Singles”, 2011
Embroidered reproduction of the Rolling Stones LP.
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Milen Till Rock’n’Roll 1984, 2016
Skateboard, turntables, vinyl records
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Robert Howsare Drawing Apparatus, 2012
‘Robert Howsare created the Drawing Apparatus, where he connects pen with two turntables and mixes the speed of the records to create a unique drawing.’
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Moray Hillary Pre-New Reflective, 2018
‘The portraits from Hillary’s current series are a marriage of plastics, made by layering acrylic on vinyl. Due to an overexposure to oil paint several years ago, Hillary was forced to convert to the use of acrylics. His change in medium led to the development of a unique painting process that occurs in phases. First, the hole of the LP is sealed with paper and primer. Then thin diluted layers of pigment in water are pooled and poured over the surface. As a result, the fluids become fossilized under a layer of varnish. Similar to the Old Master technique of glazing, this step-by-step method is repeated until the image is significantly built up with paint layers such that the surface bears resemblance to porcelain or china.’
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Dana Jones Thots, 2017
‘Dana uses vinyl records to create “thots” in order to record his unfiltered concousiness into physical forms. Also vinyl records symbolizes the commercial music industry. A industry that transforms the emotions and narratives of artists into commercial products. By melting down the vinyl and reshaping it, Dana is reshaping this commercial system and making it bend for benefits.’
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Gregor Hildebrandt Various, 2021
‘Visitors are invited to enter Hildebrandt’s highly conceptual world, where vinyl records have been molded into hypnotic columns. Each work is embedded with secret music that’s often revealed only in the piece’s title, such as “I Miss the Kiss of Treachery” from the Cure or “And I Laugh as I Drift in the Wind.” The works are silent but pulsating with musical memory, visual remnants of another time.’
Kiss of Treachery
About the Actor
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Sculpture Plastic Infinite, 2014
Plastic Infinite is a 7″ animated picture disc by Sculpture, released January 2014.
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Gerhard Richter Record Player, 1988
Oil on canvas
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Yuri Suzuki The Sound of the Earth, 2020
‘The Sound of the Earth is a content of Yuri Suzuki`s spherical record project, the grooves representing the outlines of the geographic land mass. Each country on the disc is engraved with a different sound, as the needle passes over it plays field recordings collected by Yuri Suzuki from around the world over the course of four years; traditional folk music, national anthems, popular music and spoken word broadcasts. An aural journey around the world in 30 minutes.’
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‘Created using Processing, ModelBuilder Library by Marius Watz and a 3D printer, Amanda Ghassaei at instructables managed to print a 33rpm music record that actually doesn’t sound too bad considering the limitations of currently available 3d printing technologies. These records play on regular turntables, with regular needles, at regular speeds, just like any vinyl record. Though the audio output from these records has a sampling rate of 11kHz (a quarter of typical mp3 audio) and 5-6bit resolution (mp3 audio is 16 bit), it is still easily recognisable.’
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Matthieu Crimersmois H.E.T., 2012
‘Scratch music real-time visualisation of notation, programming.’
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Siemon Allen Records, 2009
‘Practically, these prints are detailed scanned enlargements of individual records. I chose items that were particularly damaged, scratched or stressed; perhaps the opposite of what a record collector might prefer to collect. The damage on the record was a further marking by unknown authors who had unwittingly contributed their history to the object. The image in the print captures not only the historical audio visually in the form of the lines or grooves, but also the scratches, damage, and repair work done by subsequent owners, which is clearly visible. For me, the damage shown in the prints sets up a visual irony. On one hand, in art historical terms, it represents a kind of decay or even degradation. On the other hand, the damage is, in most cases, the direct result of use and reuse. It could be viewed as the by-product of the most amazing fun. This irony is heightened when one considers the context of the object’s use—the apartheid era.’
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Kimberly Clark Passion, 2005
Giant record spinning by motor
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Tamir Sher Masters on 45s, 2012
‘Israeli photographer Tamir Sher decided to use his old record player to remix the classics. Except instead of taking an old Zeppelin LP for a spin, he took a Van Eyck painting. Sher spun reproductions of classic paintings at different speeds and then took photographs of the masterpieces in motion. Depending on the speeds, recognizable classics range from slightly blurry to hallucinatory.’
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Ron Arad The Concrete Stereo, 1983
‘First created in 1983, Arad’s Concrete Stereo is an iconic example of post-industrial aesthetics. Approximately ten stereos were produced of which five are today retained in major international museum collections. With the realisation of electronics that were so small, they no longer dictated the form of their housing, the production of home audio equipment became feasible, particularly as the parts could be bought as readymade elements. Arad chose concrete as the medium for this apocalyptic hi-fi, as a way of underlining its architectural character.’
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Joseph Beuys Beuys Laughing, 2020
‘In early 1974 Joseph Beuys, Klaus Staeck and Gerhard Steidl sat in a Boeing 747 from New York to Düsseldorf, returning home after Beuys’ American tour. The trip had been a controversial success, and its every stage carefully documented by Staeck and Steidl in videos, photographs and audio—their trusty Sony TC-50 cassette recorder was always at Beuys’ side during his lectures, conferences and workshops. To relieve the boredom of the flight, the three listened to some of the recordings and Beuys surprisedly noticed just how much he laughed: why not edit this laughter into a single, surreal track?
‘Steidl subsequently gave the original tapes to the young sound engineer Siegfried Schäfer, who set to work reducing bass and background noise, and created a final edit of 20 minutes. Steidl played this master to a delighted Beuys, who decided to issue it as an audiotape edition, in the mold of his 1969 recording Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee (Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No, No, No, No). Yet the master tape of Beuys Laughing was then sadly lost for a period of 46 years, only to resurface in 2020. Now, re-mastered and digitized by Schäfer and Pauler Acoustics, it is finally available to the public, in a limited-edition vinyl EP.’
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Yves Klein Prince of Space, 1959
‘Rare 1959 Yves Klein recording. Titled Prince of Space this is a silent recording – pressed but silent – on which the solist is credited as Cosmos Berthold Finkelstein ( Helikon ). Discogs writes: “There is absolutely NO music on this record. The record is pressed, it is no blank disc, but as the title “Musik der Leere” (= “Music Of Emptiness) suggests, there is nothing there to listen to – except the crackling of the needle of your record player…” The record is also referenced in the book ‘Broken Music’.’
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eRikm Porn-Noise, 2010
‘As a tribute to FM Einheit, industrial music pioneer, PORN-NOISE displays a hybrid mating between a virile machine and a virgin icon. Punk energy merges with a melodic overtone in a musical coitus both ironic and threatening. The electric angle grinder is autopsied, and its steel instrument replaced by a coloured vinyl in a kitsch way. Enraged noise pop-anesthetized, infernal machine emasculated with a pink 45 rpm record… A nod to industrial music sound aggressions, immediately followed by the tangy wind of pop.’
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Dennis De Bel Field Recording, 2011
‘Commissioned by Showroom Mama for the Land Art for a New Generation exhibition.
Field Recording is the ploughing of an ‘12000 inch’ vinyl record into soil and recording the sound of the creation (contact- and directional-mic’s). The final piece consists of this video and the recorded sound cut into real vinyl (12″).’
Eccentric record test play (Dire straits – Brother in Arms), 2011
Sew-O-Phone, 2008
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Mungo Thomson The Windham-Hill Works, 2016
‘The Windham-Hill Works is a series of turntables with modified motors that play albums released by the 1980s/90s New Age record label Windham-Hill. Windham-Hill released precision-engineered instrumental music in the tradition of Erik Satie’s 1917 “Furniture Music“ – music composed to play in the background. Many Windham-Hill artists, particularly its star George Winston, sought thematic inspiration from the passage of time itself and titled their songs and albums for the months and seasons. Thomson’s modified turntables alter the play of Windham-Hill records so that their nearly undetectable revolutions summon the turning of the earth: Winston’s December takes 31 days to play, William Ackerman’s It Takes a Year takes 365 days, and so on.’
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Mingering Mike There’s Nothing Wrong With You Baby, 1971
‘Between 1969 and 1976 a self–taught Washington, D.C. artist known only by his alter-ego, Mingering Mike acted out his youthful fantasy of becoming a famous soul singer and songwriter, including LP albums made from painted cardboard, original album art, song lyrics and liner notes, self-recorded 45 rpm singles and more, all tracing the career of a would-be superstar. The works powerfully evoke the black entertainers of the late 1960s and ’70s and are a window onto an historical moment when black radio was new and Washington-based performers like Marvin Gaye were gaining national attention and transforming American music. Mingering Mike was among the countless kids who dreamed of being discovered.’
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Unknown Untitled (Nantes), 2021
Paint, manhole, sidewalk
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lauren woods American Monument, 2019
‘Artist lauren woods was en route to complete the installation of her exhibition protesting police brutality against black people at the Cal State Long Beach University Art Museum when she received a flurry of calls and texts. Her key collaborator, Kimberli Meyer, the museum’s director, had been abruptly fired.
‘Meyer and woods (who uses all lowercase) had worked with students for a year to compile documents related to police violence acquired through the Freedom of Information Act for the exhibition “American Monument.”
‘Its centerpiece was an interactive sound installation — a grid of 25 turntables that played audio related to black people who died after altercations with police. The cases included Michael Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old killed by Ferguson, Mo., police Officer Darren Wilson in 2014, and Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old pulled over in a routine traffic stop, whose death in a Texas jail cell was ruled a suicide in 2015.
‘Once a needle is dropped on any of the 22 spinning turntables on pedestals, jarring recordings from dashboard cameras, bystander audio, and readings of police reports and court transcripts interrupt the music playing in the background.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, That’s an interesting question. The next time I communicate with Hedi, I’ll ask him. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yes, the wrong people are always the rich ones. Curious, that. Holy fuck, well, I hope your lightbulb is holding steady. Maybe wear a bunny costume while you’re home until you’re sure. Haha. I hereby decree icepity is yours! A rather selfless act on my part, mind you. Love locating a super wealthy slave whose fetish is surrendering his fortune to American transgressive novelists who live in Paris, G. ** Misanthrope, George, I’m pretty sure we all have crazy fucked up particles in us. Better to be slammed by work than slammed by tina, I guess. On second thought, maybe not. Well, if a chicken had to die for some dude’s birthday the least you can do is make sure it’s really tasty. ** TomK, Thanks, Tom. I can guarantee you it won’t be elegant, though. Super awesome that you already have a second novel in the settling-in phase. Great news, not to mention a third one in the pipe. I don’t need to tell you that I completely understand the lengthy sentence fiddling. So worth it, I also don’t need to say. Have a great weekend, pal. ** _Black_Acrylic, Oh, man, you’ve been beset lately. I’m so sorry, but I’m happy to hear the chipperness in your voice. Yeah, stay the course. Your new world is so close now. ** Bill, The movie lists were great, right? And revealing. If I ever hire an escort again, I’m going to demand a worst movies list from him before I sign on. We’re doing everything we can to avoid crowdfunding. There are thousands of people fundraising for their films there, and, with rare exceptions, the amount you raise there is not enough for us, and it takes a huge amount of work and time to man those things. So, hopefully not. I’ll try ‘Precarious’. I need a weekend film. I just watched that Abercrombie & fitch doc which was watchable but nothing more. Enjoy the next two days’ booties. ** Nightcrawler, Yep. I mean I agree with you. Ah, you’re an -ish guy too. I guess we should count our lucky stars? My second favorite Sade is ‘Juliette’. It’s juicier (weird word) and, I don’t know, more intense than ‘Justine’. But others prefer the latter. Justine is a masochist and Juliette is a sadist, or more so. They’re both fine, and if you want read more of him, those are basically the only topnotch choices. ** Steve Erickson, Oh, is that true about the commonality of calcium crystals floating in older ears’ canals? Wow. How will they solve that if that’s the issue? Congrats on finalising the album! We have explored and are exploring every possible funding option. Or rather Zac and I have been frantically exploring them since the power that be is incompetent, lazy, and full of shit as previously stated. Had we worked with someone competent and professional, we would have been in the clear a long time ago, but now we’re out of time, and the best options would have needed to be undertaken months and months ago to be options. We’re stuck. We’re going to make the film no matter what, but quite probably with threadbare resources and with a lot of difficulty and drawbacks. It’s hateful, but other than Zac and I scrambling to try to bring in any money we can in these last days, which we are doing, and placing our hopes on the minuscule chance that the one responsible for the fundraising comes through with even a part of what he ‘guaranteed’ us he would, there’s nothing else to do. Thanks for asking. ** Someone, You revelled appropriately. They don’t make my favorite gum anymore. It was this sour orange gum whose taste only lasted about 2 minutes if you were lucky, which is why they don’t make it anymore. Plus it was full of horrible chemicals too. Based on my research, the most popular pop stars by far amongst the escort set are LDR and Billie Eilish. What does it mean? ** John Newton, Hi. I’m not a resident here, so I don’t pay French taxes, just the US ones. I’ve always written for work pretty much my whole life. I have one friend who takes steroids, and even though I would never say this to his face, it makes him look weird. He looks ‘muscular’ like Madonna looks ‘young’. I knew Lisa Lyons a little because she was married to a novelist who was a friend of mine. She was nice. I met Robert Mapplethorpe once. He was very, very stoned. Fuckhead will remain unnamed. I’ve never heard of Jean Ray. I’ll check him out. Good weekend to you! ** Okay. Here’s a weekend for all you vinyl fetishists and fascinationists. And hopefully for the rest of you too. See you on Monday.
Now available in North America 