Vinyl Art

The Second Lives exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York has some interesting pieces made from vinyl records. The above sculpture by Jean Shin is called "Sound Wave".

Here's a short blurb about "Sound Wave" from Jean's site.

Records were melted and sculpted to form a cascading wave, dotted with bursts of colorful labels. The resulting structure speaks to the inevitable waves of technology that render each successive generation of recordable media obsolete. The piece also aims to physically manifest the ephemerality of music as well as one man’s musical tastes, as represented by his personal record collection.

I love vinyl. It's not my favourite medium of music because CDs, let's face it, are so much more convenient and now that digital mediums are standard, they're even more convenient than CDs. You would think that all this convenience would kill something as awkward and cumbersome as 12 inch records.

So why have I lugged around kilo's of records all these years? Perhaps it's the physical feel of vinyl, the nostalgia, I'm not going to get into CDs vs Vinyl but to my layman's ear, vinyl DOES feel warmer to me. These are all good reasons to be passionate about such an obsolete way of storing music but I think the number one reason why I still hold the torch up is the way I felt when I first heard vinyl. From laying around in my dad's study listening to old New Order albums to being surrounded by a possee of friends getting down in a club, I've always had positive vibes from vinyl. That's where the magic lies for me, in that initial connection. I hope that's something I'll keep with me for the rest of my life.

As music mediums march on, all the old mediums become just so much of yesterday's junk. At least that's what I think this sculpture is saying to me. Still, vinyl is as big a part of my life as it ever has been. Here's hoping it will stay that way.

Check out more pictures from Second Lives in this gallery at the New York Times.