ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS! is a band I discovered last year browsing online. Another testament to how fantastic the internet is. They are a band how has taken old CRT televisions and various fans, then converted them into instruments. I remember when I first discovered them being awe struck. I never thought I would live to see someone play a television as an instrument. Or a fan for that matter. I’m hoping to see more bands like this appear in the coming decades. The world is constantly obsessed with the next best thing, the latest technology and the best technology. Even I am guilty of this. But I think there is much to appreciate about older technology, it was built to last, unlike today where we see technology built to only last until the next iteration comes along. It’s just wasteful. So to see a group of people take discarded TV’s and use them for something completely different to their original purpose is inspiring. I think it is also very important the message this conveys. That something may appear to be outdated and useless in it’s original field, but may be the next best thing in another.
I think it is important to mention the importance of the use of bar-code readers in their work. I’ve never really out much thought into bar-code readers personally, but analyzing the way their used in this setting is extremely interesting to me. BC readers are usually instruments of cataloging and reading, but here their used not to read, but be read audibly. Instead of interpreting a message their producing one. This can also be applied to the television sets as well. A performance they made called “BARCODANCE” really intrigued me. They had a dancer wear striped clothing, then played her using the BC readers. Essentially turning dance into music. It really is amazing. I don’t think this could have been done without their distorted vintage tech instruments. Unless someone made an extremely large theremin, but you wouldn’t get the same results.
My work shares a thread of relation to ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!, in the way that they take advantage of twentieth century technology to create music; and I am taking twentieth century video (digitized) and creating new modern video from it. This recycling of the old world is very evolutionary in practice, or memetic. The BARCODANCE performance has got me thinking that maybe I am focusing too heavily on using programs as a way to generate my visuals and sounds, maybe there is a way to create using a combination of analogue and digital equipment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANIDBu4B9so