Magnetic Memories

The installation presented a reel to reel tape recorder connected to a suspended 5 min loop of magnetic tape that extended outward from the machine and stretched across a white panel before returning to the recorder. The tape moved continuously through the system, forming a physical and sonic circuit within the gallery space. Its path across the panel created a series of horizontal lines that functioned as both a structural element and a visual translation of the recorded signal.

The tape carried fragments of radio and television news broadcasts from the Lebanese Civil War. These recordings circulated endlessly through the loop, producing an intermittent soundscape composed of partial sentences, interrupted reports, brief tonal signals, and moments of static. The fragments never assembled into a complete narrative. Each passage dissolved into another before a clear chronology could emerge.

Originally transmitted through radio frequencies and television networks, these reports once attempted to organize unfolding events into coherent public information. Within the installation, however, the broadcasts returned as isolated remnants. Detached from their original moment of transmission, the voices and sounds functioned as temporal residues that drifted through the space without resolution.

The device functioned as both playback system and sculptural component. As the tape circulated repeatedly, the medium itself performed the gradual instability of recorded memory. Magnetic tape stores sound through delicate physical traces that slowly deteriorate through friction, tension, and repetition. Each passage through the mechanism subtly altered the signal.

Inside the gallery environment, the work produced a subdued listening condition. The sound remained low and dispersed, closer to an echo than to a broadcast. Visitors encountered a field of fragments rather than a linear historical account. The voices of reporters and announcers appeared briefly before dissolving again into static and mechanical motion.

Through its looping structure, the installation addressed the persistence of historical memory. The fragments of wartime reporting continued to circulate without closure, suggesting how mediated histories remain present long after their original moment of transmission. The work held these remnants in suspension, allowing the audience to encounter the fragile material traces of a conflict that once unfolded through the airwaves.