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 Source: Excerpt Library (Music I)

Using technology in ways that were not originally intended is a recurring theme across the sources, particularly in the realms of artistic innovation, sound design, and creative problem-solving. This practice often involves treating a tool not as a fixed functional object, but as a "black box" that can be manipulated to produce unexpected results.

The Studio and Equipment as Musical Instruments

One of the most prominent examples of repurposed technology is the recording studio itself. Traditionally viewed as a tool for documenting a performance, artists like Brian Eno redefined it as a compositional instrument. This shift involves several unintended uses of studio hardware:

• Utilizing Faulty Equipment: Eno frequently avoids servicing his synthesizers because their deterioration and malfunctions produce unique sounds that are "literally irreplaceable". He notes that if he used a machine as designed, he would be limited to predictable results, whereas a "good kick" to a device might reveal functions the manufacturer never intended.
• The "Suitcase" Synthesizer: Eno used early synths, like the EMS VCS3, to treat live instruments on stage by feeding their signals through his own mixer, effectively performing "live on-stage production" through ring modulation and filtering.
• Tape Manipulation: In the development of Musique Concrète, the tape recorder was transformed into an instrument by using reversal, speed changes, and looping to render familiar sounds unrecognizable.

Visual and Narrative "Guerilla" Tactics

In filmmaking and video art, technology is often "broken" to capture more authentic or interesting textures:

• Video Paintings: The concept of "video painting" was discovered accidentally when Eno left a camera on its side; he found that viewing the resulting image by turning the television on its side produced a pure, non-narrative portrait that stripped away the standard expectations of the medium.
• Deconstructing Imagery: Director Mike Figgis advocates for the deconstruction of imagery over concrete reality, deliberately shooting out of focus or using dark environments to "fabricate grain" on digital video.
• Revisionist Filmmaking: Modern tools like CGI have been used to retrospectively "fix" or alter film history, such as Steven Spielberg's use of digital effects to replace the guns in the hands of police in E.T. with walkie-talkies.

Mechanical and Digital "Fakes"

Sound effects editors often rely on "faking" sounds using unrelated technological objects to achieve a more convincing reality than the actual object would provide:

• Auditory Illusions: A sound editor might use an old-fashioned press to simulate the sound of a distant bicycle or the bow wash of a navy destroyer to represent a kitchen tap pouring water.
• Sweetening: To make a car sound "old and exhausted," an editor might add the sound of a washing machine or a printing press to the mix during dubbing.

Scientific and Structural Repurposing

Unintended use of technology also extends to foundational engineering and social structures:

• Frequency Hopping: The first patent for frequency-hopping spread spectrum, co-authored by Hedy Lamarr, utilized mechanical player piano rolls to synchronize the changing of radio carrier frequencies, an ingenious adaptation of musical technology for military defense.
• Heuristic Machines: Cyberneticians like Stafford Beer argued for organizing complex systems only "somewhat" and then "riding" on the dynamics of the system rather than specifying every detail, a concept Eno refers to as "surfing on entropy".
• The Recombinant Archive: Modern artists often function as curators, using digital tools to sample and remix existing cultural fragments, thereby eroding the concept of a finished, perfect artwork in favor of a "permanently unfinished" process.