Recorder gestures toward the ephemerality of information by recording audio into sand. Similar to a record player, the machine has a turntable, a tonearm, and a stylus. However, record players work by interpreting sound waves - users hear audio based on the way the needle “wiggles” in the grooves of a record. Recorder inverts these functions for input by hooking the tonearm up to a microphone. A very shallow sandbox acts as a turntable, spinning at 45 rpm as the tonearm moves slowly across the sand. Talking into the mic wobbles the stylus, drawing sound waves into the sand. A fulcrum mechanism amplifies the appearance of the sound waves for a stronger visual cue between input and output.
Documentation of this work by Tim Nohe.