Archive for the 'Media Change' Category
Device for finding the inherent sonority of objects
My device for the instigation of change finds the inherent sonority of objects. It’s housed in a collectible Rambo lunch box, and the circuit takes a 9 volt battery. The signal is first sent through a 4093 nand gate oscillator chip connected to a 100k pot and a 1 megaOhm pot. The signal is then sent into a 4049 pre-amp/fuzz circuit, then into an lm386 op-amp, and then the signal’s voltage is kicked up by a radioshack audio output transformer. The signal is then sent out to two piezo discs/drivers. The piezos can be attached to other objects, and then used to resonate those objects.
The idea behind this is that the device is a hacked object that hacks other objects by turning them into mediums of sound/resonant bodies, supplanting their intended use-value in the process. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s musings on “the collector”, I decided to use a collectible object to house the circuit in because I feel like collecting objects can be understood as a precursor to hacking objects in that collecting, like hacking, is an attempt at replace commodity value for values outside of the “cycle of exchange”. In the case of collecting, these values are personal and aesthetic, as for the collector the collected object is an art object to be displayed and embedded with the personal meanings (where i got the object, that time in my life, why i choose this object and not others). The object’s use-value and exchange-value are null and frozen within the collection.
The hacked object, though, is given different values. Its use-value is not null but transformed into other use-values and functions as determined by the hacker. New personal values arise as well, as the hacker feels a degree of control and closeness to this “new” object s/he has created, as opposed to the alienation (ala Marx) and distance between the consumer and commodity.
