Two pieces David Tudor composed in 1970 for the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka, built by E.A.T.: Pepsibird, from tapes of human and animal brain waves, and Anima Pepsi, from insect and animal field recordings. Anima Pepsi is conceptually centered on the exterior, specifically field recordings that Tudor made of animal and insect sounds: mosquitoes in a jar, a fly on flypaper, a wasp chewing, a beetle walking, as well as a mix of human and animal sounds that he referred to as the “funny tape”. Further distinction is rooted in audibly different approaches to the interface between source material and technology. If Pepsibird deploys interior sounds in ways that allude to the natural world, Anima Pepsi pushes the sounds of nature and humanity toward the otherworldly through the clear presence of electronic sounds and processing, revealing a stronger association with the artist’s hand, as it moulds detailed, pointillistic patterns of abstract sonority into the work’s gauzy blankets of ambience and space.
