His Master's Voice II

Spoken language and music have only acquired their all-encompassing presence and power through the possibility of their preservation and electronic manipulation. The technical link between the acting human being and the apparatus is the microphone. It has become the counterpart of the human being who communicates with others via the electronic media. As such, it also symbolises the power that is conveyed via the communication media. (This is probably why people who want to demonstrate power like to be depicted speaking into the microphone). So it seems to be no coincidence that microphones almost always have a phallic shape, although almost any other form would be possible acoustically, technically and in terms of handling. In the sculpture "His Master's Voice", Hans Jürgen and Helga Lannoch have tried to make this power-demonstrating formal language visible.