Rendering Time (Basinski): an Interview with William Basinski

Abstract

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Obsolescent media, technology, and time in William Basinski’s experimental sound art

“…Basinski pushes the potential of only a few seconds of sonic textures and melodies to their limit, to the point of the actual destruction of the materials, in order to evoke perpetuity: When asked about the description of the "perfect loop", Basinski insists on this undiscernible, never-ending sonic flowing: "For me, it's one that…you don't hear a beginning or an end, or if you do, it resolves itself into the beginning perfectly, and then it just flows. So, you're creating a kind of a vortex or a stargate -an escape hatch, if you will" (Habib & Brady-Savignac 2019). As a durational work based on boucles of sounds, The Disintegration Loops are articulated through continuity and repetition, but from their infinite, iterative structure also emanates an agonic variation: the sound reprises and simultaneously changes as it dissolves with every turn of the reel.…”