Bogliasco by Travelling Cassettes

From Bogliasco, a small coastal town overlooking the Ligurian Sea, five tapes began their journey — packed in envelopes, addressed to other listeners, other makers somewhere else in Europe. The instructions were simple: record something, anything, on the next open section of the tape, then send it onward.

What followed was an unfolding conversation. Each participant met the project at a different point in time and geography. Some recorded at home, some in studios, some while traveling. Each added a fragment, a gesture, a moment, a pause. The sound of each recording, the subtle wear of each rewind, even the waiting between arrivals — all became part of the piece.

In addition to the sounds carried by the cassettes, there was correspondence — notes, handwriting, postal traces. With every stop, it absorbed the marks of its travel: the faint impression of previous playbacks, the soft degradation of magnetic tape, the bureaucratic language of customs and delivery, the paper sleeve signed and written on by different hands in different places. As the cassettes moved, they mirrored the rhythm of a community that connects across distance and through small acts of exchange, of attention.
What emerged was a networked artwork, a carrier of sound and meaning.

Every contribution depended on what came before it, every gesture shaped by the limitations of time and medium. No one could hear the full work until the tape returned, and even then, it was only one version — one sequence of layered presences. The process itself was the composition.

This project belongs to a lineage of collaborative art practices — from the mail art networks of the 1960s to the community-driven sound exchanges of today. Yet it insists on the slowness and tactility of linear analog media. Beyond the sound it contained, the tape became a vessel of attention, trust, and a shared curiosity about what happens when creation becomes correspondence.

In an age of instantaneous sharing, Traveling Cassettes — Bogliasco Vols. 1–5 asked for something different. It required waiting and uncertainty. The physical act of sending an object across borders became both a logistical and poetic gesture. It required care. Each participant added their own presence — a moment of listening, a trace of participation in an ongoing collective timeline.

When the tapes finally returned, they contained a layered document of their own travel — a time capsule of distributed creativity. For 125 minutes, the five volumes trace the invisible lines that connect individual sound practices into a shared field.
What you hear, as the iron slides smoothly past the playhead, is the record of movement — of a community that listens to each other through time and space.

Traveling Cassettes — Bogliasco Vols. 1–5
A collective project initiated in Bogliasco, realized by participants across Europe. Each tape a vessel, each recording a passage, each exchange a continuation.

Recorded across Italy, France, Poland, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Hawaii, and the Netherlands.

Glitches encountered during the recording process are an intrinsic part of the listening experience.

Completed 2022-2026.

A collaborative project born from the llllllll.co community, Traveling Cassettes gathers artists across Europe in an analog exchange. Five tapes travelled hand to hand, each contributor recording a fragment before passing it on — documenting connection, trust, and collective creativity in motion.