As the world becomes increasingly digital, the experience of listening to music becomes more and more removed anything tactile. In the completely wired world, everything is on a hard disk, there is nothing to touch or see.

In a live performance you can see the performer. Listening to a record involves scanning a cover, removing the vinyl and placing it carefully on a record player. Even a CD has a tactile presence that lets you feel you are holding something tangible.

Developed from 1997, I have created a music player encasing "Binary Dust", with sculptor Rufus Moore, and engineer Alexei Blinov.

The object is very precisely in keeping with the organic strength and timelessness of the music. Although the music has organic origins, it has no tactile origins - it is termed "acousmatic". This listening experience is shifted back to the tactile.

To feel the stone, and play the "release" requires a deliberate action that builds a stronger link between you and a contextualised listening experience - forcing you to take a deliberate action, create a pause, and time to prepare.

The music player/audio sculpture has a physical playback device embedded within 19Kg of granite. It has no connectors and no buttons - optical controls allow you to play/pause/skip.

The listening experience is then directly associated with the object. You can plug your headphones, or hi-fi, directly into it. For a wire-free experience you can tune in your radio - it has an embedded FM transmitter. We are currently exploring embedding solar power to remove the need to 'charge the stone'.

Audio Graffiti

We will be placing variations of these pieces in selected public locations so you may encounter it in some places by tuning your radio into the right frequency ...

Read more about audio graffiti here

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.