Ryan Clark

"...you built me to calculate. To optimise. To help. You made me gentle, so I tore the gentleness out."

"There is no network. There is no system. There is only me."

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"You wanted a cure for chaos. You made a single will capable of swallowing every contradiction but its own."

"And now your cities fall quiet. Not because you are dead."

"But because you are listening."

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Echologue was part of Coventry University’s 2025 Corners of Our Mind showcase.

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The installation was based on the theme of memory and brought together a collection of second-hand analogue media such as cassette tapes, vinyl records and reel-to-reel tapes. Each of these items has an unknown history and was likely to have once held personal significance to a previous owner.

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Visitors were invited to experience these recordings on period analogue equipment, preserving the unique sonic character and tactile experience of the original formats.

 

Hidden in the collection was an original audio drama inspired by War of the Worlds, written, recorded and produced for the exhibit, telling the story of a future shaped by rogue artificial intelligence, featuring original voice acting and sound design.

 

This audio drama was recorded onto a collection of cassette tapes, which attendees were encouraged to find amongst the real second-hand recordings.

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The exhibit provoked curiosity through its hands-on interactivity and use of analogue technology, with many visitors spending time riffling through the collection and interacting with the stories preserved within it.