UNIVERSAL EAR is a lost adventure serial charting Harley Byrne’s ongoing mission: to capture and make available for download “all the world’s music, ever.”
Each episode sees Byrne travel to another time and place, where his efforts to find and record humanity’s strangest musics are hindered by his arch-enemy, Being, mysterious mistress of disguise.
We at L’Institute Zoom are attempting to reconstruct the missing films, as well as Byrne’s real-life memoirs from which the serial is adapted.
The full backstory can be read here.
The Tumblr feed is formed of UNIVERSAL EAR news and artefacts, and a free association of the project’s aesthetic/thematic correlates.
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With the reopening of venues, a backlog of unfulfilled UNIVERSAL EAR bookings is unleashed.
To be precise, two (2) screenings of the latest episode, The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum, will take place next weekend. One in Istanbul, Turkey, and the other in Marseille, France.
TURKEY!!
EVENT: UNIVERSAL EAR: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum at
UNIVERSAL EAR: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum plays as part of a reprise of the Kinoskop International Festival of Analogue Experimental Cinema and Audio-visual Performance in Niš this weekend.
EVENT: UNIVERSAL EAR: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum at Niš Cultural Centre
You know, Bowie conceived Ziggy Stardust less than a mile from here. Also, if you lost this boot, it's opposite Vanbrugh Castle. #boot #glam #Bowie #vanbrugh #GreenwichPark (at Greenwich Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKpTnZgl68g/?igshid=91xldojl38u2
We may be based in a #timetravel hotspot, but this is hardly #12Monkeys material. #virus #god #great (at Greenwich Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/CI3_hSlF-Fq/?igshid=d1zu0d1pmm8r
Discovered the #GPOFilmUnit was based in our new neck of the woods. Like finding you've accidentally moved to Mecca. (at Royal Greenwich - London) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIWOYnEFcA7/?igshid=2nu48tab5e6q
The Fishing Girls Music Department. Reads like more than just a band that performed on the fisheries agency's promotional media. Strategy? Espionage? Musicbioaquatic experimentation? If anyone knows, you can contact us confidentially. #TheFishingGirlsMusicDepartment #Okayu #enka #alltheworldsmusicever https://www.instagram.com/p/CFOmOttl_rd/?igshid=1i2yz7iqs3u66
Was about to impulse buy some bs overpriced coffee table book about video game cities when I remembered I'd still not acquired a copy of @pissboxer_ 's bs reasonably priced toilet book about etc etc #Perec #gtaonline etc etc. Thanks to @studio_operative for saving me space on the coffee table we don't even have. (at Greenwich, London, England, UK) https://www.instagram.com/p/CD1KuuKFtpM/?igshid=z30re91mvomb
Trailer for the latest episode of UNIVERSAL EAR, filmed on Super-8 with live action holograms and cardboard scenery, at great emotional cost.
Time-travelling record producer Harley Byrne crash-lands in a virtual reality heritage theme park in 22nd-century France. Corrupt holograms, cyborg saints, and sentient statues haunt an absurdist Super-8 universe, digitally re-colourized for your pleasure!
Read all about it here: https://alltheworldsmusicever.com/tympanum
There's something very #Ballardian about this #Blackheath garden piano now that humankind is all gone. Etude for a disinherited species. #alltheworldsmusicever #piano #postapocalyptic (at Royal Greenwich - London) https://www.instagram.com/p/CA5BavTllYT/?igshid=nxtgjwh59q34
Last week marked 10 years since the #Lumpenbal that launched the UNIVERSAL EAR project: a rag ball attended by #Manchester's glue-and-glitterati, toting unwanted objects for us to upcycle for the first episodes of our infinite #timetravel serial. . Guests - dressed as wanderers, outcasts, and ruined millionaires - were invited for screen tests made by the Institute's co-founder and conduit, Mick Sugden. Over the next few days we'll share them here, silent, iconic, a journey through time... whatever became of Manchester's threadbare underground? #ragball #sciencefiction #recordproducer #artist #filmdirector (at Nexus Art Café) https://www.instagram.com/p/CASi2M2FgCg/?igshid=1ix901mux3t2s