Massive Attack and more contribute to innovative record design project

Vinyl records have been technologically revisited in recent years. ‘The Library of Dangerous Thoughts’ has artfully contributed to these developments with its new audio project, aiming to raise awareness around censorship, using radiography film and featuring X-ray scans. The new concept has been developed by The University of the Underground, a charity founded to offer free and transnational education to the next generation of creative talent.

Unreleased tracks and monologues by a host of thinkers and artists including Massive Attack (who won a Wallpaper* Design award earlier this year for founding member Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja's work in digital bitstream), have been released for the first time through the project, alongside original artwork. The soundbites – dubbed ‘dangerous thoughts' – have been collated with the overarching aim to act as a call to action, to ‘inspire citizens of the world into creating further pluralistic platforms and to support free education’.

The collection takes a spin on the traditional picture disc record through its material choice, with audio etched onto the film by a mastering lathe made in 1957. Due to the nature of the material, each track can only be played ten times before degenerating and being lost forever. A total of 48 records have been produced by the Bureau of Lost Culture, a project established by composer Stephen Coates, portrait photographer Paul Heartfield, dedicated to recollecting counter-cultural stories.

Each record is available for auction through Collecteurs, the world’s first digital museum of private collections. The charity hopes that this will in turn stimulate public engagement with politics and democratic institutions.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the University of the Underground website