Cybernetic Serendipity Music

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Peter Schmidt

1968

Music/Sound

1 sound disc : analogue, 33 ⅓ rpm, stereo ; 12 in.

Cybernetic Serendipity The Listening Room

Description

Issued by London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1968, the Cybernetic Serendipity Music LP was the audio companion to the ICA’s seminal exhibition on art and technology. Curated by artist Peter Schmidt, the 12-inch record surveyed every major approach to computer music then emerging. Highlights include excerpts from Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson’s Illiac Suite (1957), the first fully computer-generated composition; John Cage and David Tudor’s stochastic tape collages; and works realized at Bell Labs, including the famous synthesized rendition of “Daisy Bell.” Pressed in a small run and sold exclusively at the ICA, the anthology offered the public unprecedented access to a varied range of experimental music.