The History of Stereo

The History of Stereo is a computer game and interactive structuralist film based on media-historian Friederich Kittler’s history of stereophonic sound.

The Battle of Britain, Göring’s futile attempt to bomb the island in preparation for Operation Sea Lion, began with a trick for guiding weapon systems: radio beams allowed Luftwaffe bombers to reach their destinations without having to depend on daylight or the absence of fog. Radio beams emitted from the coast facing Britain, for example from Amsterdam or Cherbourg, formed the sides of an ethereal triangle the apex of which was located precisely above the targeted city. The right transmitter beamed a continuous series of Morse dashes into the pilot’s right headphone, while the left transmitter beamed an equally continuous series of Morse dots–always exactly between the dashes–into the left headphone… resulted in the most beautiful ping-pong stereophony (of the type that appeared on the first pop records but has since been discarded). And once the Heinkels were exactly above London or Coventry, then and only then did the two signal streams emanating from either side of the headphone, dashes from the right and dots from the left, merge into one continuous note, which the perception apparatus could not but locate within the very center of the brain. A hypnotic command that had the pilot “or rather the center of his brain” dispose of his payload. Historically he had become the first consumer of a headphone stereophony that today controls us all-from the circling of helicopters on Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland all the way to the simulated pseudo-monophony, in the midst of the soundspace of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, that once more wishes for the acoustics of targeted bombing.

Friedrich A. Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter

In the game, the player is the pilot steering through clouds, trying to fly within the double beam of Morse code signals. The stated objective is to drop the bombs at the right place. The actual objective is exploration since the game rewards the player for both success and failure with randomly played video clips.

The main game interface

Success/failure video clips