The CYLAND Audio Archive (CAA) is a division of CYLAND MediaArtLab, created to investigate archiving and exhibiting methodologies of sound art. This archive is a continuous process of working on a structure of various subgenres of sound art, making compilations, and cataloging the growing archive. To date, there are 58 releases in the archive, including works by more than 80 artists from every continent except Antarctica. All the records are available for listening on cyland.bandcamp.com.

Sound art has consistently been a part of CYLAND’s festivals and exhibitions. We have been experimental with our approach, largely because when exhibited amongst multimedia installations, sound art can easily fall in the shadows.

It was a long process of trial and error to find a concept that would manifest in physical form a presence of sound in an exhibition space. There were probes with using portable players or tablets, headphones or directional speakers. Surprisingly, the most suitable medium — vinyl records — has always been available and remains to be a means of record and archive, it’s so well suited for representation of sound. Using records, we can now store, and showcase sound art in its most natural physical form. First-hand interaction with a turntable became a good additional feature. While the curator’s job is to compile a selection of records for an exhibition, people themselves manage the rest — they choose records to play, and run through descriptions. Each of the releases presented, are a stand-alone pieces accompanied with an artist statement, short commentary from auteur. — Sergey Komarov

Selection of records for CYFEST-15 in Yerevan:

CAA—1 Nick Edwards
CAA—2 Peter Vogel
CAA—3 Hans Tammen
CAA—4 Dmitry ::vtol:: Morozov
CAA—5 Kurvenschreiber
CAA—7 Art Electronics
CAA—8 Pete Um
CAA—9 Jonas Gruska
CAA—10 Yoshio Machida
CAA—12 Vasily Stepanov
CAA—13 Sasash Ulz
CAA—14 Georgy Bagdasarov
CAA—15 Max Kuiper & Thorstan Soltau
CAA—16 Mark Hannesson
CAA—17 Akira Rabelais