ELECTRONIC EDITION
First published as an experiment in 3D conceptualism.
ABCDEFGHUMAN invited several relevant electronic composers, artists and programmers to share personal images and diagrams of a single electronic device they use to compose, or perform with, to be analysed, manipulated and reimagined as contemporary works of art, available to own in a large-format magazine. Also available to view at the British Library.
Spatial 3D graphic of a Moog Modular system, belonging to Adrian Utley of the band Portishead.
As a concept, the material approach to presenting technology as both artwork and physical installation emerged from a collaboration with an artist—now a gallery owner—following a request for work for a public exhibition in Sheffield.
‘Provocativa Electronica’ centred on a pair of damaged Technics SL1210 decks, spray-mounted in perspex and painted the same pure white as the gallery walls. Stripped of description or listing, the work aimed to foreground the objects themselves, suggesting a form of technological dissociation beyond their original context in experimental music.
Direction
Drawing on conceptualism, technology can be reimagined as abstract images that reflect the artists themselves. As such, we invited a range of established, emerging, and revered electronic artists to submit photographs of a chosen piece of technology, which were then artistically manipulated without direct creative intervention.
Historically, conceptualism emerged in the mid-20th century as an approach in which the idea behind a work took precedence over its physical form. Artists began to treat systems, instructions, and processes as the artwork itself—often using industrial materials, mechanical reproduction, or language to remove the artist’s hand from the final outcome. In this context, machines are not simply tools but collaborators: they enable distance, repetition, and transformation, allowing the work to exist as a set of conditions rather than a singular object.
Limited Edition TB303 Circuit Diagram Cover.
Subway.
DJ Michailo poster: 'Weeks / Days / Floors / Synths'
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