Rotting Sounds

Rotting Sounds was a multi-year research project that dealt with various aspects pertaining to the deterioration of digital audio. Grill, Schilling and Bovermann understand this decay and the resulting products as a new and welcome aesthetic. This occupation with decay ultimately led to all residual materials being collected during the research period: From yogurt cups and spray cans to hard disks, USB sticks, cables, and clothing. This heap of waste was finally shredded and transformed into paper. Formally and in terms of content, the book explores decay and dissolution, thereby challenging the traditional aesthetic of collecting and preserving. The quantity of paper produced also determined the edition size, which is only 20 copies. Each copy bears the traces of its origin by embedding the cycle of transformation in its fibers.

Rotting Sounds
Ed. Thomas Grill, Almut Schilling, Till Bovermann
Mark Penziger Books, 2025
Softcover, thread sewn, 35 × 40 cm, 32 pp.; English & German
Design: Astrid Seme

Contributions: Till Bovermann, Thomas Grill, Almut Schilling, Burkhard Stangl
Edition of 20
ISBN: 978-3-903353-17-6

Published in collaboration with mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts