Materia Prima

The second issue of the tekhnē online journal compiles articles by artists interested in the materiality of media and sound reproduction technologies. Their reflections are interspersed between the sound phenomenon and its restitution. They make tangible the hidden infrastructure and politics of the raw material resources on which our digital culture depends and show us how this digitization impacts planetary and ecological systems. This second issue is compiled by GMEA.

Yann Leguay takes us on a “speleological” journey through a personal history of sound media which descends into their constituent layers of materials. Leguay draws from his repurposing of technical and musical objects, along with analysis of their (dys)functions, to shed light on two paradoxical movements. An incalculable number of layers separate us from information recorded for sound reproduction. At the same time, those layers are bringing us closer to the atomic structure of materials and becoming extensions of our bodies, which changes our relationship with the reality that we seek to augment.

Derniers Souffles is an installation that forms part of a research-creation project initiated four years ago by Sonia Saroya and Edouard Sufrin. The title refers to the final hissing noises emitted by obsolete electronic components, as well as the factors affecting the habitability of our planet, which is threatened by the unbridled expansion of the technosphere. Here, the two artists describe their creative process.

In this deep dive into the metallurgy of Bluetooth speaker drivers, Stephen Cornford reads their magnetism through a comparison with planetary geomagnetic forces. What emerges is the imbrication of portable audio media with technologies of energy transition in a rare earth resource race whose extractive excess is contributing to the destabilisation of the geological commons.

They’re light, rechargeable, and power our electric vehicles and portable devices. Lithium-ion batteries offer have extended the range of roving sound projects, paving the way for the development of new, more mobile practices. The evolution of the lithium-ion battery and its multiple (mis)uses come to the fore in these interviews with three artist collectives who have created mobile sound systems for all-terrain listening experiences.