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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Skate
Janek Schaefer
Original: Skate Audio CD Track34 | 0:00:11 | 1.9 MB
Original: Skate Audio CD Track60 | 0:00:07 | 1.3 MB
Original: Skate Audio CD Track76 | 0:00:06 | 1.1 MB
Original: Skate Audio CD Track88 | 0:00:09 | 1.6 MB
Original: Skate Audio CD Track96 | 0:00:04 | 703.5 KB
Original: Skate Ansichtskarte | 2418 * 3456px | 3.2 MB
Original: Skate LP | 1772 * 1772px | 557.0 KB
Original: Janek Schaefer press photo | 1772 * 1329px | 156.4 KB
Original: Skate Grammophone Lathe | 1116 * 1338px | 73.4 KB
Original: Skate info diagram | 1381 * 1890px | 844.1 KB
Original: Skate LP on turntable | 1338 * 1194px | 363.9 KB
Skate is a project that exploits the physical qualities of sound on vinyl to create a random playing record that generates two types on media: a series of sound reactive light installations, a composition on 3“ CD.
The “anti-skate” facility of a modern turntable inspired me to make a new way of playing and listening to a record. The Skate LP breaks down the standard spiral groove into tiny shards of sound. The needle can then skate freely around the surface of the record making a new composition each time it is played. To do this I developed a technique of cutting tiny individual “sound scars” onto the disc. I took apart an antique wind-up gramophone and pumped sound backwards into it in order to make the analog stylus a vibrating cutting head. Then, winding up the gramophone, I built up the collage concentrically scar by scar.
I used the complete works of Pierre Schaeffer as the source material for this lo-fi process. The type of record player, its speed and the user will all affect the results, which can be either chaotic, controlled or rhythmically complex. The Skate installation develops this source material. A collection of 60 skate sounds and 30 silent tracks play back from three random play CD’s in a darkened gallery. Connected to the three pairs of speakers are sound reactive light bulbs which flicker and glow in response to these intermittent sounds. Together they create a complex ‘living’ space.
When there is no sound, the lights die and the audience is left with a visual imprint of the space as they stand in blackness and silence awaiting the next phase of activity.
The 3“ CD is a composition using a mix of the installation room recordings and the original LP sounds.
The “anti-skate” facility of a modern turntable inspired me to make a new way of playing and listening to a record. The Skate LP breaks down the standard spiral groove into tiny shards of sound. The needle can then skate freely around the surface of the record making a new composition each time it is played. To do this I developed a technique of cutting tiny individual “sound scars” onto the disc. I took apart an antique wind-up gramophone and pumped sound backwards into it in order to make the analog stylus a vibrating cutting head. Then, winding up the gramophone, I built up the collage concentrically scar by scar.
I used the complete works of Pierre Schaeffer as the source material for this lo-fi process. The type of record player, its speed and the user will all affect the results, which can be either chaotic, controlled or rhythmically complex. The Skate installation develops this source material. A collection of 60 skate sounds and 30 silent tracks play back from three random play CD’s in a darkened gallery. Connected to the three pairs of speakers are sound reactive light bulbs which flicker and glow in response to these intermittent sounds. Together they create a complex ‘living’ space.
When there is no sound, the lights die and the audience is left with a visual imprint of the space as they stand in blackness and silence awaiting the next phase of activity.
The 3“ CD is a composition using a mix of the installation room recordings and the original LP sounds.
Janek Schaefer (UK), born 1970. While studying architecture at the Royal College of Art (RCA annual prize), he created “Recorded Delivery” (1995) for the Self Storage exhibition (Time Out critic’s choice) with one time postman Brian Eno and Artangel. Since then, the multiple aspects of sound became his focus, resulting in many releases, installations, soundtracks for exhibitions, and concerts using his self-built record players with electroacoustic collage. The “Tri-phonic Turntable” (1997) is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the “World’s Most Versatile Record Player.“ The context of each idea is central to its development and resolution. His concerts and installations explore the spatial and architectural aspect that sound can evoke and the twisting of technology. Janek Schaefer has performed and exhibited widely throughout Europe (Sonar, Tate Modern, ICA), USA (The Walker), Canada (Mutek), Japan, and Australia, playing at the Sydney Opera House in 2003. He was selected as the ‘Sound Designer of the Year’ by Creative Review magazine in 1999, and was a McKnight Composer in Residence for the American Composers Forum, USA 2002/3. He runs his own label (audiOh! Recordings) and web site (audiOh.com) as well as releasing work with Sub Rosa, Staalplaat, Hot Air, Sirr, Rhiz, Alluvial, DSP, Diskono and Fat Cat. He currently works as a full time sound artist / sound designer / musician and composer from the audiOh! Room in London.