Over five decades ago, in 1973, DJ Kool Herc changed music forever by using two turntables, each playing the same record, with a mixer to switch between them, in order to extend percussion breaks indefinitely. In the 1980s the “failure” of Roland’s TR-808 to successfully emulate a real drummer was embraced by hiphop and techno pioneers who used its synthetic sound as the bedrock to create entire new genres. And as hip-hop’s cultural dominance grew, it influenced seemingly incongruous areas such as PlayStation games, in the form of 1997’s PaRappa the Rapper. Canadian visual artist Connor Gottfried extends the tradition of bending and adapting technology to create unique mashups with his Turn/Tables (PaRappa’s Delight).
The piece combines a laser-cut acrylic turntable tone arm with the 1979 Sugarhill Gang release “Rapper’s Delight,” and a multi-layer aluminum composite paneling re-creation of the classic Rhythm Composer (Connor assures me no actual 808s were harmed in the making of this piece!). A 19" 4:3 IPS display connects to a Raspberry Pi 4B for the game emulation, with a PlayStation Classic USB controller to help PaRappa nail his lyrical timing.
Look closely and you’ll see a cutout in the center of the record, which reveals a portion of an 8" IPS panel on which an MP4 video of the record’s label is animated in order to create the illusion of it spinning. The piece is designed to facilitate travel and repair, with easily-separable magnetic and velcro parts, and was recently part of Gottfried’s attendance-record-breaking show at Taiwan’s most-visited gallery.
See more of Connor’s astonishingly inventive mash-ups of video games and pop culture on Instagram.
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