Koyaanisqatsi
Philip Glass
12" bespoke concrete/felt/acrylic vinyl case, screen-printed paper sleeve, concrete USB and website/evolutive artist databank.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) is a documentary film directed by Godfrey Reggio, for which experimental musician Philip Glass composed the soundtrack. Finding its roots in the Hopi language, the word 'Koyaanisqatsi' is generally translated as ‘life out of balance’ or ‘life disintegrating’, and is used as the piece's title to sensitise its audience to the shifting nature of our environment: ‘in our world the “original” is the proliferation of the standardised. Copies are copies of copies. There seems to be no ability to see beyond, to see that we have encased ourselves in an artificial environment that has remarkably replaced the original, nature itself.’ Godfrey Reggio
The project is tasked with designing and producing a collector's item which would reflect on the themes explored in the film, using materials and processes as tools for meaning whilst offering the user a sensory and digital experience relevant to our era. Over the last few decades, the music industry has slowly been shifting and analogue formats are slowly disappearing in favour of digital downloads and streaming services. However, just as we still buy books and magazines despite the existence of e-books and the predominance of the internet, many of us are still attached to physical artefacts and the sensory experience they provide. Concrete and felt were specifically chosen for their visual/tactile similarities with items found in nature such as stone and fur whilst concrete also bears another meaning through its weight alone: our natural environment has shifted towards a man-made milieu, leading us to enclose ourselves in an artificial environment.