The Weightless Animals’ picture disk is part of their similar website, and has also been created by improvisators Kaffe Mathews (London) and Zeena Parkins (NY), together with visual artist Mandy McIntosh (Glasgow). The intent was to investigate the sound experiences men and animals go through during a space travel.
These three ladies went to NASA headquarters (Houston, Texas) to question astronauts and flight controllers, as well as the common Houstonian, about what they felt would be the perfect soundtrack for space. Their global work consists of samples and improvisations, both visual and auditive. On the website, which definitely deserves a visit, you can find interactive impressionist space cartoons, each accompanied by their own little piece of music. Because of the size of these major files, and not every pc is sufficiently powerful to stream these sounds optimally, the most important pieces, nine on the whole, have been assembled on this disk.
The sounds consist of archived recordings of NASA, short interviews, and samples of the hangout’s jukebox of NASA personnel. Weird soundscapes peppered with the NASA staff pep talk, and the personal choices from the jukebox, result into an intoxicating piece of art, which matches perfectly the journey through the website. Weightless Animals proves the force of the Internet…
They are probably the first to bring out a record that completes a site.
By Patrick Bruneel. http://www.toeternitoe.be
(translated. av)