When you have a musical legacy stretching back to the founding of Columbia Records in 1889, asking an artist to graphically represent your entire history on the office walls is a big job to hand out.
Luckily, rising star of the graphics world, Alex Fowkes, was up to the challenge and the result is the stop-you-in-your-tracks installation at Sony’s Derry Street offices. Split into decades, Fowkes has used 54 columns, each over 2 metres high, and covered over 150sqm of wall space in vinyl (how appropriate) to tell the story of one of the biggest music empires in history. Interspersed with graphics name-checking all the luminaries who have graced the company’s recordings, there are milestones marked in technology development and other watershed moments that have shaped popular music culture.
The Sony Music Timeline is not the finished article, however, as Fowkes and Sony plan to add to the installation each year as new artists are added to the firm’s roster of rock’n’roll talent. Still time for our editor-in-chief to get his name up there yet…
Photography and video, Rob Antill,
video music by Avenue Beech
