For a few months my roommate and I have been pursuing this strange but compelling goal of integrating printmaking and sound. It's a strange task since many questions come to mind at the thought of the project.
Can we make sound from prints?
Is printmaking even compatible with sound?
How do we even begin to explore this?
My thoughts immediately went back to an old friend and our activities in the print shop. Many printmakers, I'm sure, have printed the grooves on record LP's. It's a natural conclusion to imagine that the lines pressed into the vinyl will print onto paper with a good inking. In fact, it works really well. So well that I wondered if we could somehow start there and make this project go forward. So our first experiments involved making circular zinc plates and making lines to play on record players. My goal was to synthesize sound through line depth in etching. I tried drypoint to no avail. And in all my experiments, I only achieved a passable beat in one singular line. Still, the results so far are enough to spurn us on.
My roommate Brack Morrow, a sculptor and burgeoning printmaker, the inventor of the sound lathe pictured above, discovered that he could create a drypoint line that plays nearly recognizable music. That was another breakthrough. I'll post images of the prints when I get them, and links when I can find audio hosting on the web. Can a print be played? Is our goal to recreate vinyl record technology? No. Is it a good place to start? Why not?
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