Saturday, September 09, 2006

X-Ray Sound Recordings

by Kevin Kelly In the USSR and Eastern Europe in the 1950s underground night spots would play music pirated from the west. The only media they had were recorders etched into discarded X-ray film...the method became so widespread in Hungary that not only amateurs, but the Hungarian Radio made sound recordings on such recycled X-ray films. I find thesealso interesting from the visual aspect...

József Hajdú, collected and posted these images. Here's what he says about them: "I felt that those X-ray record albums relate to our contemporary lives in many ways, especially when considering such terms as 'multimedia' or 'recycling'. I copied the X-ray films with their engraved sound-grooves on photosensitive paper and made enlargements of certain details."

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1 comment:

Diane Dehler said...

It's very interesting what people can do with discarded things. I'm not sure that I understand how a record can be made out of an xray though. There must be millions of discarded xrays.

I am also interested in rail box cars being used for temporary shelter for some of the millions of homeless people in the U.S.