Media Archeology

[The User]

“is a Montreal based contemporary art collective comprised of architect and installation artist Thomas McIntosh, and composer and sound artist Emmanuel Madan. The duo’s collaborative projects re-imagine relationships between technological systems, culture and human experience in striking ways.”

[The User] :: The Symphony #1 for dot matrix printers – 1998 from Undefine on Vimeo.

Audiovisual performance for 12 dot matrix printers and video projection by [The User]
The Symphony for dot matrix printers is a work which transforms obsolete office technology into an instrument for musical performance. The Symphony focuses the listener’s attention on a nearly forgotten technology: the dot matrix printer. Specifically, it employs the noises the printers make as the sole sound source for a musical composition. Leaving the constituent elements untouched, the process imposes a new order upon them, reorganizing the sounds along a musical structure.

 

Sue Harding