Digging in the Crates
ditc.weaintplastic.com www.weaintplastic.com Digging in the crates - The digging in record crates to find rare pieces of music that can be used for new productions, has long been a ritual of a scene within the music culture. Since the mid-20th Century it is called sampling, when digitized sound samples of existing musical works are edited, rearranged and used in modern music productions. An interactive installation offers possibilities to explore sampling as a production technology of contemporary music. While modified turntables are used to navigate dynamic data visualizations, information graphics as well as auditory contributions are helping to understand complex contents and relations. Besides the history of sampling or technical backgrounds of the digitization of analog audio signals, visitors can also obtain information on the dissociation of sample-based productions and other musicological phenomena such as remixes, mashups or covers. As a highlight of the exhibition the visitor can slip into the role of a producer and goes on a fascinating search for suitable samples, which will be found on soul, funk and jazz records of the 70s and 80s. Depending on user interests, Digging in the Crates offers different approaches to the topic. The visitor acts in a totally free interaction-space, which allows him to consider sampling from completely different perspectives. The straight interaction with information is just as important as the possibility to deal with "sampling" in a passive way. This means the user can slip into an active role in which he has full control over the visualized information as well as taking a rather passive attitude to get inspired by the interactions of others. Digging in the Crates aims to describe the sampling culture in all its aspects, characteristics, and influences. Not only the understanding of the creative process as a craft but also the effort and creative processes associated with sampling should be communicated authentically.
