Flipper C
(2013 – 2016)
Main project page and publication: Flipper ABC.
Other versions: Flipper A, Flipper B.
An audio flipbook of 99 books starting with the letter ‘C’ (NSCAD Library, Halifax, fall 2013). The flipping action is miked closely in order to transpose physical materiality to the sonic realm. Each book’s weight, size, binding affects how a book will flip and consequently the recording. How a book sounds. Sounding a book.
The raw unedited recording is subsequently sliced into 99 parts of equal duration. Each of those parts is then put through a max/msp patch that generates 99 micro-files where the first of these takes the last 1% of the file and piles it on the first 1%, then the second takes the second to last 1% and piles it on the first and last 1%, and so on. The last file has all the 1% snippets piled on top of each other in the culmination of this process of ever increasing density. So, 99 files processed in such a way generates 9801 files (99 x 99). All of these are then played back in either linear (i.e. sequenced) or random (i.e. out of sequence) modes. In addition, two other sources are subjected to the same entire process: the album Generic (1982) by classic punk band Flipper, and the first episode of the first season of the television show Flipper (1964).
A commission by the Centre for Art Tapes in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada for the Acoustic Networks project.
Recorded by Tom Elliott at the Centre for Art Tapes. Images by Annie Onyi Cheung. Video edit by Renée Lear. Max/MSP patch by Christopher Willes.
