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The Disintegration Loops

7/9/2010

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William Basinski, experimental composer from New York City, explores through sound the reverberations of memory and the nature of time. 

His work, ‘The Disintegration Loops’, paid serendipitous homage to the demise of physical tape when in 2005 he set about re-recording some analogue tape loops he had produced twenty years earlier. As the melodies were transferred from analogue to digital, he realised that the tape itself was disintegrating. As the iron oxide particles turned to dust, they dropped onto the tape machine, chipping away tiny sonorous sections from the sweeping pastoral soundscapes contained therein. By the end of each piece, the tape’s body had been stripped to a clear plastic skeleton. 

Basinski continued to record the sound of this decay to produce six meandering loops of haunting sound. Each loop begins brightly, warmly, before becoming a muddled melody, fading into fragmented distortion, static, or quiet. Some of the loops decline within fifteen minutes, whilst others fade for more than an hour. The loops play like accidental improvisation, irregular sound patterns created by the decline of matter over time. 

The story goes that he finished his re-recording in September 2001, at the time that the Twin Towers came down. From his Brooklyn rooftop, he watched the smoke of downtown Manhattan whilst listening to his played back loops, hearing and viewing the ruins of both sound and space. 

The demise of the tape loops marks the beginning of a new musical document, while the notes themselves, scattered and divided by the simultaneous processes of physical ageing and technological renewal, produce an ethereal haze in which personal memories might also be effaced. Silence is engraved where symphony once was. 

Though his ‘Disintegration Loops’ embody an analogue death, there remains something eternal about the sound of their heaving last breaths. 

 
Hannah Gregory
Autopsies Group Participant, London Consortium 2010-11

Read more on 'The Disintegration Loops' here.
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The end of the road

3/9/2010

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These photographs, taken in August 2010 in Paris, show a row of buildings awaiting demolition. Until recently, these provided accommodation for housing, a hotel, shops and workshops. The empty shops and the almost entirely abandoned apartments will soon be bulldozed to make way for a large new structure.

The project to redevelop the buildings between numbers 1 and 9 rue Bichat and 43-45b rue du Faubourg du Temple in the 10th arrondissement of Paris has been planned for some time. The council of the 10th arrondissement approved the project on 9 May 2006.  

Presenting a technical report to the council, Sylvie Scherer described the buildings proposed for demolition as of 'mediocre quality'. Some of the buildings already had been condemned dangerous. Cracks were visible in floor boards and on ceilings and the wooden structure was judged fragile and full of woodworm. Inhabitants of the buildings also risked lead poisoning, according to the technical report.

The council proposed to demolish the existing buildings and build a new structure to house 80 subsidised flats, a creche, gardens and an underground garage. Space would also be allocated for the insulation of shops on rue Bichat. The council approved unanimously the project, which had projected cost of 21,228,000 euros in 2006. [1]

The development was due to begin in 2008 and be completed in 2010, but the process has taken somewhat longer than originally planned. Most of the tenants of the existing apartments and shops only moved out in July 2010, and demolition work had not commenced in September 2010.

The likely demolition of the rue Bichat buildings led a Paris history blog to place the area on its list of urban heritage in danger. The blog believes the Bichat buildings represent an important part of nineteenth-century working class history, and that the building at 45 rue du Faubourg du Temple dates from the eighteenth century.

Judging by the recent exodus of tenants from the buildings, it seems the preservationists' pleas to preserve the area have fallen on deaf ears. In my view, the real problem is not the demolition of the crumbling buildings but the fact local businesses have been forced to move out of the area. The restaurants and cafes in rue Bichat were bustling centres of the community, and the little shops provided specialist services to locals. The artisanal shops offered knowledge to their customers that is almost impossible to find in large chain stores. At a time when ironmongers, electrical bazars and shoe repairers are vanishing from our streets, it seems unlikely that any of these local businesses will return to the area, even if new premises are provided for them several years down the line in the redevelopment.
 
Jacob Paskins


[1] Mairie du 10e arrondissement, Compte rendu du conseil d'arrondissement en date du 9 mai 2006, pp. 16-18.
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