Escape Mechanism is the title of a sound collage project instigated by Minneapolis based artist Jonathan Nelson. Using fragments of audio from a variety of previously recorded sound sources, the project is an experiment in recycled media.
Escape Mechanism has taken many forms, since 1997. From solo studio releases and theatrical sound design, to a live ensemble and sound installation, the project is defined by its re-use of sounds found in the broadcast media.
Although essentially a studio project, Escape Mechanism experimented briefly (1999 – 2001) with live improvisation. Performing under the name Cast of Thousands with Escape Mechanism, the rotating ensemble also worked exclusively with bits and pieces of the media environment, performing at art venues and performances spaces such as The Walker Art Center, the Soap Factory and The First Avenue Main Room.
Escape Mechanism has collaborated with artists such as Steev Hise, The Tape-beatles and Wobbly, and mounted sound installations at art galleries such as The Blue Theater, Rosalux Gallery and The Rochester Art Center.
Escape Mechanism proudly presents itself as 100% recycled, as every sound found in an Escape Mechanism composition is recycled from a previously recorded source. No original sounds are incorporated; only original juxtapositions.
Nelson is perhaps best known for his role as host and producer of the nationally syndicated radio program, Some Assembly Required. The show is a weekly exploration of works of appropriation, by artists who use samplers and other audio playback equipment to create original sound collage compositions.
The program brings together artists from multiple genres, and has featured interviews with sound collage artists such as The Bran Flakes, Emergency Broadcast Network, The Evolution Control Committee, Omer Fast, DJ Food, The Freelance Hellraiser, Girl Talk, Go Home Productions, Christian Marclay, Negativland, John Oswald, People Like Us, DJ Qbert, DJ Spooky, Steinski, The Tape-beatles and many more, since 1999.
A record label (Recombinations) and recurring art exhibition (Festival of Appropriation) are among Nelson's other projects. His visual work has shown at galleries such as The Rogue Buddha, Outsiders and Others and Rosalux Gallery.
The Evolution Control Committee is an experimental music band based in Columbus, Ohio. The ECC was founded by Mark Gunderson in Columbus, in 1986. They create music that falls within the borders of the sound collage genre, as it typically uses uncleared and illegal samples from various sources as a form of protest against copyright law. The ECC also produces numerous audio experiments, such as the disfiguring of compact discs in live performance, known as "CDestruction", and has produced a few video works as well, ranging from re-edited 50's corporate shorts to Teddy Ruxpin reciting the works of William S. Burroughs. Other activities include culture jamming.
The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the U.S.: together with the adjacent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and the Cowles Conservatory, it has an annual attendance of around 700,000 visitors. The museum's permanent collection includes over 13,000 modern and contemporary art pieces, including books, costumes, drawings, media works, paintings, photography, prints, and sculpture.
Over the Edge is a sound collage radio program hosted and produced in the United States by Jon Leidecker ("Wobbly") and Robert Cole ("KrOB"), who took over in 2015 after the death of longtime host Don Joyce.
People Like Us is the stage name of London DJ multimedia artist Vicki Bennett. She has released a number of albums featuring collages of music and sound since 1992. In recent years, she has performed at a number of modern art galleries, festivals and universities.
Carl Stone is an American composer, primarily working in the field of live electronic music. His works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the Near East.
Some Assembly Required is a sound collage radio program in the United States, produced in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the first radio show known to focus exclusively on works of sample based music, and appropriation in audio art. The nationally syndicated program features work by artists from a variety of genres, including plunderphonics, hip hop turntablism, musique concrète, noise, bastard pop, sound art and more. The program celebrated its tenth anniversary on January 27, 2009. The final episode originally aired in 2011.
The Tape-beatles are a multi-media group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986. Its members have included Lloyd Dunn, John Heck, Ralph Johnson, Paul Neff, and Linda Morgan Brown. Beginning with analog tape recorders, and later expanding to include digital technology and film media, the group has used collage techniques to create works that challenge the notion of intellectual property. Their works make extensive use of materials appropriated from various sources through a process they call "Plagiarism®". The Tape-beatles' body of work consists mainly of noise music and audio art recordings, expanded and performed cinema performances, videos, printed publications, as well as works in other media. They produce and release work under an umbrella organization called Public Works Productions.
Antediluvian Rocking Horse (ARH), formed 1994 St. Kilda, Australia, is an audio project maintained by two core artists credited as DJ2 and DJ3. DJ2 is Paul Wain, a sculptor and graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts. DJ3 is Susan King, a collage artist, writer and anti-copyright advocate. The composer Ollie Olsen was also a member. The project produces music and soundscapes that are entirely recycled from other recorded works.
Lloyd John Dunn is a founding member of the mixed-media and experimental sound art group the Tape-beatles and founder, publisher and editor of several small-press magazines, such as PhotoStatic and Retrofuturism. Since the early 1980s, he has been making work for a variety of media, including film, video, audio, print, and the web.
Plunderphonics is a music genre in which tracks are constructed by sampling recognizable musical works. The term was coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay "Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative", and eventually explicitly defined in the liner notes of his Grayfolded album. Plunderphonics can be considered a form of sound collage. Oswald has described it as a referential and self-conscious practice which interrogates notions of originality and identity.
Collage is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole.
Vikky Alexander is a Canadian contemporary artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has exhibited internationally since 1981 as a practitioner in the field of photo-conceptualism, and as an installation artist who uses photography, drawing, and collage. Her themes include the appropriated image, and the deceptions of nature and space. Her artworks include mirrors, photographic landscape murals, postcards, video and photography.
Jon Nelson is a sound collage artist and a radio show host for Some Assembly Required. He "mashes music and found sound — from old movies, laugh tracks, the news — to make what he calls the audio dreamscape of the media age." Jon Nelson has been championing the genre of mashup music for more than 10 years; Some Assembly Required is now syndicated throughout the United States and Canada. 262 episodes were produced from 1999 to 2011.
Gregory Euclide is an American contemporary artist and teacher who lives and works outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Garrett Phelan is an artist from Dublin, Ireland. He has developed a distinctive art practice that directly engages the audience with immersive ambitious site-specific drawing projects, independent FM radio broadcasts, sculptural installations, photography and animation.
Jacqueline Fraser is a New Zealand artist of Ngāi Tahu descent.
Philip Miller is a South African composer and sound artist based in Cape Town. His work is multi-faceted, often developing from collaborative projects in theatre, film, video and sound installations.
Rik Rue is an Australian experimental musician, and sound artist, known for his audio collages in recordings and live performance.
Maria Cristina Tavera ("Tina") is a contemporary Latino artist, curator, and cultural organizer who lives and works in Minneapolis, MN. Influenced by her dual citizenship, as well as her transnational movement between her residing Minnesota and Mexico families, she combines historical and contemporary texts and images from recognizable Latin American myths, legends, and present news. Tavera uses her prints, paintings, installations, and Dia de los Muertos ofrendas, or altars, to explore the way that national and cultural icons symbolize complex identities and can construct shared communities at home and abroad. Her artwork is both humorous and confrontational as she invites her viewers to question constructs of race, gender, ethnicity and national and cultural identities. She has exhibited her artwork and curated shows all around the world, and has artworks permanently installed in several art exhibits throughout Minnesota.
Aleesa Cohene is a Canadian visual artist based in Los Angeles.