I began collecting music seriously when I bought my first record/tape player in the seventies. I still have my vinyls and I learned how to tape records. Music and sound began to bolster my fine art classes and I developed a series of four lectures in which I showed slides of paintings, artworks and even architecture with corresponding music and audile experiences. At first I played vinyl records and tapes and later added CDs.

 

In years to come I added systematically to these lectures and they became the basis for my preferences in sound performances and music.

A series of mishaps forced me to reconsider how I must store and use my music. Every time the horse threw me off or simply died, I had to find new ways to get back to the thrill of riding. Today I have a massive collection of music on my computer with lecture notes and loads of information and images that are easily accessible. Trust that something bad does not happen as has so often been the case:

 

• Vinyl went out of fashion when CDs became popular.
• My own sound system was stolen out of my office and the Technikon refused funds for a decent replacement.
• The speakers of my new systems were blown periodically at my children's teenage parties.
• My car was stolen with my colletion of CDs in the boot.
• My old tapes began to sound like howling winds of the universe.

 

I could not throw away my overstretched tapes. They were too important and the memories of them too great. In the artwork ÉPAT I celebrate and salute them. In colloquial French épatant is fabulous or marvellous. Épat is the shortened version - something like fab or marv. In the display I pushed the music titles to the back of the cases - although in the distance, they are a great memory of grand things. The word épat is of course also the word tape backwards.1

 

1. épat is colloquial French and backwards, in French, it is tape 'a slap' or 'blow'. Tapé, also an adjective, means 'dried' as in dried fruit; but figuratively it denotes 'first-class'; réponse feminine tapée smart answer