Data tapes are retrograde remediations of consumers’ faith in intelligently designed music. Thus some unwitting consumers, upon purchasing and listening to a data tape, might well conclude that the avant-garde is alive and well.
This suspension of disbelief would undoubtedly waver should said data take shape as code-like patterns, leading said consumers to puzzle out the presumed borderline between science and art, between calculated compositions and derelict troves salvaged from the Super Sargasso Sea.
As much could be considered the impetus for the extraterrestrial dx fishing in 1924, that had many hopeful ears attuned to noise but hearing faint whispers of the red planet’s salutations still. “One measures a circle beginning anywhere,” quipped Mr. Fort, and we can follow the speculative pathways encircling tape species, too. That the aural abstractions on a data tape encountered when sent careening through speakers, towards ears pricked up, should carry also the counter-narratives of intentional information is a splintered echo of the Martian symphathizers.
This, however, does not discount the immense and perverse joy in experiencing a dynamic noise peformance, captivating for its own abstract, damaged and often non-linear aesthetics. Tele-memetically, actively listening to “unwanted sound,” can open up borderline phenomena at the alleged barriers between signal and noise. Temporary constellations of coherency, adventures in sonic fiction, access is linked to perception. Oppositional or otherwise, the mobilization of discarded media detritus through retrograde remediations facilitates both faint whispers and salutations.
