Discarded strips of cassette tape found in and around Fei Jia Cun, Beijing, 2009.

Sound installation with tape deck and speakers.

One photographic print.

Runtime Approx. 35mins, looped.

 

Background

Here, discarded media is salvaged, re-spliced and re-presented. Magnetic cassette tape is usually found uncoiled and tangled in twigs or roadside bushes. This work was made by carefully collecting these long sparkling strips of obsolete media and re-connecting them to discover what sounds they hold. Chinese pop songs and techno music are audible beneath the warped crackles of an analogue media eroded by the elements.

 

As an installation a compilation cassette tape made from many of these strips of tape is played as a sound work on an old Sony tape deck.