Editorial
Dematerialized
Under the surface.
For a number of years now, I've focused my research and experimentation on sound media and, more broadly, on the materiality of sound and memory. In the initial project, Dead Media, I visited plants that produce vinyl records, CDs, and magnetic tapes to record the sound of manufacturing processes. I then transferred each recording back onto its original medium – a tautological gesture in which the object we are listening to begins to produce the sound of its own making (more info here). This work has since taken a more performative direction that involves repurposing different media to explore the musical potential inherent in artifacts of their mechanisms, dysfunctions and materiality.
I delved into these technical objects and their inner workings – opening them up, modifying them, analyzing their behavior and the differences between them. In doing so, I began to question the role of the rising number of interfaces interposed between the physical phenomenon of the sound wave inscribed in a material and its reproduction in our eardrums, from manufacturing to the part these interfaces play in the creative process.
In retracing the development of sound transcription technologies, I realized that a condensed history of our relationship with materials was contained within these mechanisms, circuits, internal architectures and functions. The story of sound media is also the story of our relationship with that which is real and tangible – a kind of dialogue with the material.
That led me on a speleological journey of sorts, through the layers and history of materials from which sound media are made – a descent inside technical systems to understand the ties that bind us with these materials that we've been trying to tame for millennia.
Sound from scratch.
When, in 1860, the first plates coated with lampblack were inscribed with sound using a stylus, the idea was not to reproduce sound, but merely to transduce it. The device was dubbed the “phonautograph.”
In 1874, Bell created a variant of the apparatus that incorporated a piece of human skull and the mechanical part of the inner ear, with the stylus connected directly to the eardrum, which vibrated to write the sound (more info here). In this case, the machine uses a part of the human body to function, thus becoming a reverse cyborg of a sort (more info here). It’s an unexpected parable, given the current technological trend of human augmentation.
Edison would later patent the phonograph. The glass plate was replaced with a tinfoil cylinder and later a wax version. Instead of simply tracing the sound on the plate, the stylus etched a groove in the cylinder. A few years later, the gramophone would supplant the phonograph and the wax would give way to shellac. The cylinder gave way to a two-sided disc, which was easier to handle and store. The flat, circular surface took up a lot less space in the sound libraries that were beginning to spring up.
Technically speaking, the process is very simple. The sound vibrates the writing stylus, causing it to remove material from the disc. To play back the signal, the reading stylus follows the same path, reproducing the sound as it vibrates. The signal is amplified by the conduction of the vibration through a horn, allowing the sound to leave the device. There’s no need for electricity – the entire process is mechanical, gravitational, and vibratory. In antiquity, thoughts were carved onto stone tablets. That same technique is used here, on a miniature scale, to preserve the immaterial, voices, and time.
In this technique, the relationship between the medium and its playback is very physical. The sole interface is the stylus. Nothing else. A fine tip is all that is needed to reproduce sound. We can see this for ourselves by reading a disc with nothing more than the corner of the piece of paper, or a cactus needle (see Ecosonic Media - Jacob Smith).
Magnetic band.
The next medium of interest for this article is magnetic tape. A culmination of technical advances during the interwar period, when the ability to transform oil into plastic merged with a growing mastery of electricity. Developed in military secrecy by the Germans, this technology would not become commercially available until after the Second World War. Reels of tape were eventually replaced by the hugely popular cassette tape, which became the symbol of the 1970s and paved the way for portable audio (see Marie Lechner’s article in this journal).
Magnetic tape also marked a technological turning point. This was the first medium that needed electronic interfaces to function, adding intermediary circuits between the sound information recorded on the tape and its playback.
The recorded information was no longer etched in the material, but magnetically coated on the surface of the tape. A mechanical device moves the tape at a stable speed under the recording head and the sound is recorded via slight variations in electric current. For playback, the system is reversed: the playback head “listens” to the magnetic variations on the tape, and electric amplification of this signal allows the sound to be played back through speakers.
Despite its simple mechanics, this system cannot function without electricity, which is needed for magnetization and amplification. In this process, we can see that there is no longer physical interplay between the two elements – medium and playback – only contact with the surface of the tape. With vinyl records, the tip of the stylus nestles into the grooves, but magnetic tapes only glide over the surface – a more subtle material relationship.
Richard Strauss vs ABBA: the first compact discs pressings.
The next invention on our tour reprised the circular disc shape. The compact disc arrived on the scene in 1982 with futuristic flair (more info here). It boasted all the technical and technological advances of its era: digitized data, miniaturized electronic components, micro-mechanics, lasers, … This technological leap forward crammed an astounding amount of interfaces between the information inscribed on the disc and the playback of sound.
Several different technical tasks must be carried out simultaneously in order to reproduce sound from a compact disc. The disc needs to rotate at a high speed, while remaining perfectly stable. Meanwhile, a beam of light with a wavelength of 780 nm is aimed at the disc’s surface and the reflection from this laser is read by a photodiode and decoded into a binary signal. The errors inherent in the technique are corrected, and the data is run through a digital-to-analog convertor and amplified so that the signal can exit the device and pass through a sound diffusion system, allowing us to finally hear the information recorded on the disc. As one might expect, data is written using the opposite process: a laser burns binary data onto the surface of the disc. In this case as well, a considerable number of interfaces exist between the acoustic vibration to be written and the laser burning the data onto the disc.
When we think about compact discs in terms of materials, an aspect stands out: the lack of contact between the media and the reading implement. The information on the surface of the disc is read optically, at a distance. The lens “sees” a disc rotating under a laser beam. Nothing fits in a groove or slides over a surface. There is a sudden detachment from the material, a jump from tactile to optical.
251.64 kph.
In the 2000s, widespread adoption of digital technology meant that storage media were no longer tied to a specific use – they could hold music, images, text files or any other digital data. Hard drives emerged as the gold standard for consumer storage and were soon found in every personal computer and server, in various sizes and sometimes as external peripherals. Their storage capacity increased every year, during a era when all computer hardware followed Moore’s Law (more info here).
Looking closer at the hard drive mechanism, we see that it combines all the techniques that came before it. It has a circular shape and an actuator arm, like a gramophone. It has a magnetized surface, like a cassette, and there is no contact between the read/write head and the surface of the medium, like with a CD. Enclosed in a sealed, dry space shielded from the outside world, the head is designed to “float” above the surface on a cushion of air. The latest generation of hard drives spins at speeds in excess of 15,000 RPM, which equates to slightly above 250 kph.
So many interfaces are required to run this system that it’s difficult to keep count. Especially if you include the computer components needed for the hard drive to function at all. Take, for example, the entire chain of events needed to read an mp3 file and reproduce the sound, from extracting the requisite rare earth elements to building the electronic components and, finally, the vibration of the speaker diaphragm. Data travels through microscopic cables at the speed of light, from the bits recorded magnetically on the disc’s surface to their output in the physical world. This process entails such huge amounts of condensed matter, assembled components, and accumulated expertise that attempting to create schematics of all the technical underpinnings is a dizzying prospect.
Dematerialization is an illusion.
Hard drives were a signpost heralding the end of the mechanical age. A swan song for discs, motors, movement and acoustic noise. Now, silence reigns. Vibratory and gravitational disturbances are a thing of the past. The age of flash memory has arrived and data storage is now electric and magnetic.
The technical mastery of materials and the miniaturization of processors, circuits and electronic components have led to the development of storage media that write and read information without any mechanical parts. Cables are also disappearing, as devices can now use electromagnetic waves to communicate via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, or even charge their battery through induction. But wireless technology does not mean material-less technology. And just because information may be invisible to the naked eye, it is not necessarily dematerialized. A more appropriate term would be the “delocalization of materials” through infrastructure and interfaces. Consider, for instance, the tons of concrete poured for data centers, which are so energy-intensive that the tech giants plan to start generating their own nuclear power (more info here). There is also the energy consumed to send satellite trains into orbit and form constellations – Starlink, Kuiper, Oneweb and soon Qianfan – or the global undersea cable network that carries 98% of Internet traffic and is constantly being replaced to boost transmission speeds (Les câbles sous-marins, Camille Morel, CNRS Éditions). All this infrastructure is vital to the existence and exponential growth of so-called dematerialization.
Cognitive dissonance.
What emerges from this brief historical overview of audio media and beyond is a paradoxical movement splintering in two directions, which sheds light on our relationship with these technical objects.
One branch of this movement tends to believe that we’re moving away from materials due to so-called dematerialization, data centralization, the miniaturization of devices, and the elimination of human labor in the manufacturing of those devices. We no longer have any direct relationship with the primary source, the recorded information that we seek to physically commit to memory, what we might call material memory.
In actuality, the information itself is what we are separated from. These technical systems rely upon an array of infrastructure: incalculable layers of interfaces, components, code and intermediaries wedged between the source and the reception of information. This can be seen both on a global scale, through a network and its component companies, but also in the palm of our hand, in the high-tech devices that we use every day and continually alter our relationship with reality.
And, paradoxically, if we consider all mining operations and the amount of materials extracted, transported, compacted, and processed (more info here), this same movement brings us closer to this physical matter, which we seek to subdue and master by transforming it into ever tinier, more complex technical systems. We’re gradually approaching the atomic scale of materials, modifying their structure to store information (more info here).
Ultimately, we’ve never been so close to these materials on which we inscribe our memory and, conversely, these technologies have never been closer to us – sometimes becoming literal extensions of our bodies. I can’t help but see Bluetooth headsets and sophisticated, minuscule hearing aids as an inverted reflection of Bell’s phonautograph. Back then, a part of the human body was incorporated into a machine to optimize it; now this entire technical system is gradually becoming part of us to perform its function.
Translated by Ethan Footlik
Bio
Yann Leguay is a Brussels-based artist active between conceptual art and music. Through a wide range of practices and a deep engagement with technical objects, his work reflects critical thinking on the evolution of technology. Never where we expect him, always seeking new forms—both musical and performative—he is involved in numerous projects: solo with OOTIL, in duo with Lise Barkas (ACTLN), with Aymeric de Tapol (Cancellled), and soon again with Inga Huld Hakonardottir for a new creation. His work has been presented across Europe and beyond, with his music released on various labels such as Vlek, ArtKillArt, Consumer Waste, Impulsive Habitat, Tanuki, and TTT. www.phonotopy.org