[ARSCLIST] New challenges for audio preservation

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First off, a disclaimer...while I try to keep my posts on the serious
side...

This one is yet another indication of the world of commerce not paying
attention to preservation...I wonder if her product needs to have a
warning about shedding oxide.

Karl


Pardon, Your Dress Is Singing

By Rachel Metz  |

Think those mix tapes are pass�? More like haute couture.

Sound and visual artist Alyce Santoro has created Sonic Fabric, a cloth made
from pre-recorded, recycled cassette tape combined with other fibers. Using
a minimally hacked Walkman, the fabric becomes an audible reminder of its
musical past.

Sonic Fabric feels a bit like flexible plastic tarp, and is durable and
hand-washable. Santoro's work has drawn lots of oohs and aahs, and is making
waves in the design world.

She came up with the idea in 2001 as a conceptual art project where she used
strands of cassette tape to determine the direction of the wind, combining
the idea of wind-activated prayers on Tibetan prayer flags with her childhood
love of sailing.

"As kid I would imagine I could hear sound coming off the tape if the wind
hit it the right way," Santoro said.

She knitted a pre-recorded tape into potholder-shaped prototypes by hand.
Later she tried a commercial loom and found her eighth-inch wide cassette
tape fit onto it perfectly. Soon she began weaving tape with cotton.

Her first try yielded two yard-long panels that, for all she knew, would
never make a peep.

Then one day in 2002, another artist suggested running a Walkman tape head
over the fabric. They extracted a sound piece from a Walkman and mounted it
on a block of wood. Moving it across the fabric, Santoro heard the cumulative
noise of five tracks of sound.

"It sounds kind of like scratching a record backward. It's pretty garbled,"
she said.

Her latest creations play 20 tracks at once. She creates sound collages on a
four-track, and the reader picks up five strands at a time.

Though it doesn't sound like Bach, her current work has taken off. She's
worked with some designers to create a dress for Phish drummer Jon Fishman,
which he "played" in concert.

Instead of splicing tapes together herself, a tape duplication specialist on
Long Island now records Santoro's sound collages. She sells Tibetan
monk-inspired bags and her take on Tibetan prayer flags online and at some
stores. High-profile companies like Target and Nissan have also expressed
interest in her work.

Santoro is overwhelmed by the attention.

"To me, the important part is being able to walk around in your favorite
music or sound," she said.

"It's an absolutely fabulous product," said Samantha Delman-Caserta, co-owner
of Brooklyn, New York, eco-conscious store 3R Living, which sells Santoro's
products. She said customers love the look and feel of Sonic Fabric.

Eventually, Santoro hopes to make fabrics that can play individual sounds,
and she's working with another artist on a compact fabric reader.

For now, though, she's still a little starry-eyed.

"I never in a million years expected to take the project this far," she said.