Sonic Experience

Walking around Urban today I had one of those moments where the music on the stereo is playing and the lighting in the store is right, yellow, warm and its almost like you're transported, standing there in this endlessly perfect pair of cotton boots, singing along until you realize what you're listening to. I've been inundating myself with El Perro del Mar lately, unable to get nearly enough of her voice, of the dreamy soundscape, of the way I feel light and spring time as the speakers blow out the ethereal melodies. Let Me In starts playing on the stereo and I am humming along, unaware of why I am feeling so warm and why these boots fit so perfectly, why I like the reflection I see so much. I realize that it's her and I am happy, and as the song ends I start humming along to the next song, once again blissfully unaware of why it is I know that song, why it is I automatically start to hum along. It's Jonathan Richman's Abdul and Cleopatra, a song that I've only heard a handful of times in my life, and an artist that I have had very little contact with. As I start to think to myself - why do I know this song? - I remember: when I younger, 14 maybe, an internet beau of mine sent me a mixtape that had that song on it. I would play the tape over and over again, confused by and not fully in love with the songs he had taped, but strung along regardless, unable to close my ears to any sort of even slightly-well crafted indie pop. I remember fast forwarding over that song sometimes, finding it annoying and not appreciating the message implied by its inclusion on the tape; other times, sitting on the living room floor (at that point I was still too young to have a tape deck in my room), listening to the song and finding something charming about his faltering voice, about the obnoxiously sappy lyrics, imaging what sort of meager four-eyed boy could have been singing.

Mixtape Box

Here's a book I started years ago and plan to finish for my review board this semester. One of the first books I did along with a mixtape, around the same time Aubrey was doing his awesome mixtape tent project at RISD. Anyways, I had this one mixtape that I was really into - my boyfriend at the time saw the playlist and asked me "do you always listen to such sad music?" - I listened to it often and really felt it to be representative of my emotional state at that time. My uncle had recently given me this great book about sign painting, that featured a whole bunch of fantastic alphabets. I chose something like ten different letter sets, and decided I was going to try and compose text cards for each song, using the restricted set of letters and trying my best to express something about the song through the typography. I spent forever laying these out, and then tracing them, measuring everything - and then colored them in (I think I had restrictions about what colors I could use too? This project was all about making something out of limited resources). Then I took them to staples, had them laminated, and started the box.

I think I had drawn up the box before I started the cards, but I'm not sure. The box is so far unfinished. It needs its lid, I need bookboard. There will be a flip up lid and probably a title on the top of the box. I dig this box a lot and remember it as being a really fun challenge to make - especially figuring out the sexiest way to fit the tape in. I love making boxes. And drawing up plans.

The idea behind this project is lofty and fun - each card is a song from the playlist of the tape, and the idea is that the viewer/owner of the piece would listen to the tape and be able to re-order the tracklisting to what they feel is appropriate. Dreams about having a color printer/copier set up have me thinking that the viewer would then receive some sort of print out of the cards in the order they arranged (maybe from .pdf's that would be printed out into some sort of one page book?), and a copy of the tape. I mentioned Aubrey and his project earlier because our two pieces were riding the same wave and I we hadn't talked at all while developing them. I would describe his but I don't remember it in detail enough to do it justice - but it was great, and you could record things you were playing/hearing. It's been a real pleasure having him as my mixtape friend in art for all these years now <3.

About Mixtapes // Installed

Here's some shots from the Culture Combat conference my friend Brian put on at Brandeis a while ago. Here is the original post about this project where I posted the text and playlist. The images are attached to those great but overpriced painting boards they sell at blick, but they're just so simple and easy it was worth it. The table below had a tape player w/headphones, people listened and took a book and if they wanted/if there were any left took a tape as well. all the tapes were grabbed and i have TONS of books left, as I made an edition of 100.

Again, if you're interested in a tape or book let me know and I will mail one to you.