While thinking of how to finalise the Mix Tape Salad project I’ve simultaneously been working on a swing that sounds. It’s called Play in Reverse and will be shown for the first time in Athens the coming week. This is how we describe it on the webpage www.misplay.se/playinreverse:

Apart from listening to the wind; a short site-specific sound file will be triggered and heard when you use the swing. The sound file will be played out loud when you swing forward and the same sound file will be played in reverse when you swing backwards. To be able to hear the whole sound file you will have to swing high enough. When someone has reached high enough another sound file will be played out.

Play in Reverse is in some parts about the tension between surrendering control and yet, being in control.

All swings are characterised by their repetitive movements. Play in Reverse emphasises the feeling of being stuck in a time loop since the sounds are played out backwards as you swing back.

During this prototype period we’ve tried out many different kinds of sounds to feed it with: abstract, dreamy, words, numbers. The first time we tried it we used the sounds of a rewinding cassette at the very moment when the swing turns from forward to backward. It was a bit too direct, but there certainly is a notion of moving a tape head back and forth on a cassette tape while swinging.

I’ll try to us the swing to play out the cassette of mixed tape salads THIS IS THE TIME I FOUND IN MYANMAR that I wrote about earlier here on Dispatx. If you want to read some more about the feeling of being stuck in a time loop in Burma you can look for the entry “Another kind of swing. Stuck in a time loop” on www.misplay.se/playinreverse