Recorded March 31, 1983 at 92nd Street Y.

Italo Calvino reading from Invisible Cities, Mr. Palomar and other collections | 92Y Readings

Elizabeth Streb Post-Broadcast Chat: Would I disappear if I went that fast?

Until the middle of the 19th century, there was no recorded sound. A performance had to be seen to be heard, with no record left beyond the audience's recollections. Much of music was forgotten by time.

Then, in 1860, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville captured the first sounds as waveforms. Still, the idea of actually hearing those sounds again did not seem possible. Instead, he imagined people would read waveforms like a new language, and hear the performances imaginatively in their "mind's ears."

A Brief History of the Waveform follows the evolution of sound recorded as a wave, from Scott de Martinville to SoundCloud.

Featuring the voices of: Patrick Feaster, sound media historian; Karen Topp, senior lecturer in physics, Bowdoin College; Jonathan Sterne, sound historian, McGill University; Carlene Stephens, curator, National Museum of American History; Eric Wahlforss, co-founder and CTO, SoundCloud.

A Brief History of the Waveform

There is a beauty to a universal standard. The idea that people across the world can agree that when they interact with one specific thing, everyone will be on the same page-- regardless of language or culture or geographic locale. If you're in Belgrade or Shanghai or São Paulo, you can look at a sign and know instantly, without speaking a word of the local language, that this floor is slippery. That the emergency exit is over there. That that substance is poisonous, and you should not eat it.

The group behind those internationally recognized logos is called the International Organization for Standardization.One of the most recognizable ISO symbols in the International Symbol of Access. You might not know it by that name, but you've seen it.

The International Symbol of Access is everywhere--on parking spaces, on buttons that operate automatic doors, in bathrooms, on seats on the bus or at movie theaters. Anywhere there’s an indication of special accommodations made for people with disabilities.

The logo was created through a design contest in 1968, coordinated by an organization now called Rehabilitation International. The logo would have to be readily identifiable from reasonable distance, self-descriptive, simple, unambiguous, and practical. The winner was a Danish designer named Susanne Koefed--though her original design didn't have a head!

As the logo got absorbed into the built environment, and the politics of (dis)ability became more nuanced, some people started finding it a little lacking.
And so one group, the Accessible Icon Project, has created a new logo that they hope will ultimately replace ISO standard.

99% Invisible- 102- Icon For Access

In 1964, the abstract painter Mark Rothko was commissioned to design a nondenominational chapel in Houston called Rothko Chapel.

Rothko, an abstract expressionist, rejected the idea that painting had to be representational, and in his late career he painted large, floating fields of color. For this project, Rothko had nearly total control over the aspects of the chapel’s construction and he created 14 canvasses specifically for the environment.

However, Rothko never saw his paintings hung in the chapel. He killed himself in 1970, a year before the dedication.

Rothko’s friend, the avant-garde American composer Morton Feldman, attended the Chapel’s dedication. As Feldman describes it, the building’s benefactors asked him to “write a composition as a tribute to Rothko to be performed in the chapel.” Feldman’s tribute to his friend — also called “Rothko Chapel” — took direct inspiration from the building and the artwork within.

“To a large degree, my choice of instruments (in terms of forces used, balance and timbre) was affected by the space of the chapel as well as the paintings,” Feldman writes. “Rothko’s imagery goes right to the edge of his canvas, and I wanted the same effect with the music.”

In this audio piece, we explore how Feldman’s music and Rothko’s paintings came together through a unique space.

Featuring the voices of: Ryan Vigil, composer, pianist and scholar, University of New Hampshire; Robert Simpson, artistic director, Houston Chamber Choir; Christian Wolff, composer and emeritus professor of Classics, Dartmouth College. Produced by Qainat Khan.

Rothko Chapel

In this episode, Chris and Mark recount the formation of over,under, the quest for civic work, developing exhibitions, the salty politics of Boston in the 1960s, and of course, spirit animals. A fascinating conversation with a truly innovative and expanded architectural / design practice!

over,under is a Boston-based interdisciplinary practice with expertise in architecture, urban design, graphic identity, and publications. Our approach is structured around six working points that we implement in all projects, which range in scale from books to cities. Every project benefits from the varied professional experiences of the principals and their collaborators, resulting in designs that are intelligently shaped by a co-dependence of process and product. The firm's designs, research, and the exhibits of its pinkcomma gallery have been widely published. 

GIANTS 12: OVER UNDER

SectionCut is a curated collection of DIGITAL and ANALOG design resources and HOW TO's to assist with complex workflows acting as a cross section of design information. As a cross section of highly valued design information, S|C provides a glimpse into the contemporary designer's library of resources.


GIANTS 12: OVER UNDER

Section Cut

Related tracks