Data storage, contingency, veins


The constant accidents, this time of flawless correspondence, that result from the arbitrary alphabetic organization of digital music libraries: the passage from Bone Awl's "Veins" to Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's "Canyons Of Your Mind."

I will wander through your brain
To the ventricles of your heart, my dear...

2 comments:

Savonarola said...

Somehow brought this anecdote to mind (originally encounter in Kittler):

"Some fifteen years later, studying anatomy, Rilke noted how the seams of the human skull resembled the grooves of a gramophone record. Fascinated by the way in which machinery was expanding the range of consciousness, Rilke proposed a cross-fertilization of nature and the machine. What if the messages of nature in the groove of the skull were to be played back as if they were a sound recording?"

http://www.btinternet.com/~j.b.w/oehl.htm

ECW said...

"Bone Gramophone"! Love it, of course. Now I'm recalling those instances of pottery that has picked up, via a stray piece of straw scratching into it as it turns on the wheel, the voices of those in the room. Hauntophonoarcheologica...