Digital Art Live presents the interactive exhibition Prelude for turntable and graphic cards by Robert Carter as part of Auckland Fringe.
Old equipment is the ancestor, the teacher and the enabler. To ignore it is to turn our back on our own culture. The archives of our history live on depreciated formats.
Prelude for Turntable and Four Graphics Cards is an installation where the audience is using obsolete computers, manipulating their circuit bending to create a visual accompaniment to music. The music is played from a record by a normal turntable. The four computers are positioned in front of a screen/video projection.
In this work, Carter challenges assumptions about what may comprise an instrument. He juxtaposes the traditional concept of a classical instrument - for example, a cello, made by a human craftsperson, from wood, may be over a hundred years old and may last more than a hundred years into the future. A computer video card is manufactured by other machines, from an array of metallic and petrochemical substances, it did not exist a hundred years ago, and in normal use will be discarded in five years time. Yet both are able to create moments of beauty in their respective domains, when in the hands of a skilled player. Carter asks audiences to consider the possibility of a visual instrument, and encourage them to try the equipment for themselves.
