Entertainment Investigation #4

In this piece, I was trying to explore early phonograph record players and their design, while in the whole of this sustained investigation I wanted to explore the way that media and entertainment have changed over time. In this piece, I focused on emulating the wooden body of a phonograph record player while leaving the wire bell ethereal and light, hanging above the body. Of the four pieces, this one focuses the most heavily on the entertainment side of media, with music and perhaps a recorded play played on these early phonographs. I think that this piece is very interesting because it captures something that revolutionized the way music was performed and written and was the first time that someone living in the middle of nowhere had access to an orchestra right there in their home. The phonograph, to me, is a symbol of the music industry, the beginning of music becoming something people bought, like how movies changed the way that actors worked. The phonograph made music more accessible, but at the same time there was no longer the intimacy between performer and audience member that there was with a live audience, and I find that fascinating.

To create this piece I used skills I had practiced in my other pieces, namely construction with paper and wire. I first used cardboard and glue to make the base of the phonograph, before spray painting it in an attempt to create a white surface to paint. The spraypaint was unsuccessful so I then paper mâche'd over the box in order to create a good surface to paint on. I used acrylic paints to paint the box, wire to create the bell, and paper and ink to create the record.

This piece did not change too much while I made it. It was based upon a few preliminary sketches I didn't deviate from them all that much. I did originally want to make the base of the phonograph out of paper, but switched to cardboard because it was sturdier.