Early electric radio and turntables with their recognizable aesthetics are like totemic symbols in our hyper-mediated present. But they also historically represent an intimate moment of listening, with some artificial light emitted through their structure. This modernist fascination is the frame in Andy Behrle’s “Radios & Camera” series, where he uses old radios and cameras as containers for an enhanced mechanism, aimed to put sound and light in a consequential relationship. Examples are: “Astrotone,” where an old turntable is “retrofitted” to play an embossed star chart; “Cathedral,” which uses a special receiver to capture natural radio frequencies specifically present during the sunset; and “Point ’n listen” with an old camera whose captured light can be literally “listened” through old headphones. This “modding” is not assembling anachronistic devices, but creating unprecedented prototypes in old symbolic capsules through light and sound.

 

Andy Behrle – Astrotone

 

Andy Behrle – Cathedral

 

Andy Behrle – Point ’n listen