TARDIS

TARDIS 

A 1970’s model turntable plays Holst’s “The Planets” while a metronome (a clockwork device traditionally used for maintaining regular time in music) ticks away at the rear end of the tone arm. Attached to the metronome is a solenoid that strikes the tone arm occasionally, sending it flying to a different section of the record. Clockwork mechanisms and electronics are used to line up the metronome with the tone arm, to keep the metronome wound, and to keep the stylus raised whenever the tone arm is struck (preventing damage to an expensive needle). The audio is amplified within the space, so we hear sections of the symphony for brief periods before being hurtled to another point on the record.

Borrowing from the BBC science fiction series “Doctor Who”, the title TARDIS is an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. In the television series it is essentially a space-time travel machine shaped like a police call box; in this case it is a space-time travel machine shaped like a modified turntable. My TARDIS however can only be observed and heard. It jumps through a record of time, and through visual (and metaphorical) space, but it is limited. It is like a time machine on a leash, held to the recorded information on one side of the record.