Assume for the sake of this post that ART means “audio reversed in time”, i.e. any audio clip played (and saved) backward. This is an invertibly lossless transform.

Consider this mix, track times approximate:

00:00 -00.00 ART of “Barber - Adagio for Strings - Bernstein & L.A. Philharmonic “
02:00 -00.00 “William Orbit - Barber Adagio for Strings Techno Remix”

This mix goes from strangely familiar mourning straight to techno, and in between a short eight bars where you get the original theme. Were it not an overplayed piece you could insert the original (non-ART version) in the middle and go in and out of techno and/or the ART version.

ART tracks are more appropriately named by using the original name, with all the letters back to front, i.e.

“cinomrahlihP .A.L & nietsnreB - sgnirtS rof oigadA - rebraB”

Note that the reversed name is unique for all uniquely named tracks, and the capitalization is a hard-to-miss clue. Note also lack of misrepresentation and improper taking of credit where none is due. Also, no need to define a new abbreviation for this transform, which can be very confusing.

Another favorite example of this technique is the mix:

00:00 -00:00 “nialecroP - yboM”
00:00 -00:00 “Moby - Porcelain”

This is a pure “audio-palindrome” if you will; the ART version is undeniably musical and listenable. Key points: start with the ART version of a very familiar ART-friendly track, followed by the original track.

The question of applicability of copyright law to ART-transformed tracks is an open one. It is quite complex, and assuming copyright did apply automatically, what of an ART-transformed sample? It seems unfair to think that ART-transformed tracks would be automatically limited, as they are not the same as the original at all. There is also a good bit of skill in knowing beforehand what tracks will sound like reversed, but of course this is a type of “recombination” art form, much as collage and remixing are.

In this sort of symmetrical mix I always add a “ping” and a “gnip” at the start and end, and a “pinggnip” at the midpoint, to cue the listener.

A term I coined for unreversed backwards speech (* see below) is “Lynchified” with an abbreviation of single capital “L”, but that does not really describe this transform: all [non-live] audio is ART-ible but only spoken or sung words are “Lynchifiable”, furthermore “Lynchifying” begins at the time you make a recording, and cannot be applied after the fact since the vocalist must use phoneme-reversed words. And, ART reverses the entire track whereas “Lynchification” is the un-phoneme-reversal of many single words, but preserving the order of the words.

Related tidbits about reversal of glyphs, letters, phonemes, words, speech and audio:

• Phoneme reversal (phoneme-reversed words, or PRW): “it is not” becomes “tih zih tahn”
• Letter-reversal of text (letters reversed in time, or LRT): “it is not” becomes “ton si ti”
• Reversed letters (letter-reversed words, or LRW): “it is not” becomes “ti si ton”
• Word-reversal of text (words reversed in time, or WRT) “it is not” becomes “not is it”
• PRW, WRT, and ART together give you Lynchified speech. (Note: WRT and ART together restore word order)
• Reversed letter glyphs (flip single letters graphically on the X axis, or LRX): “p becomes q becomes p, b becomes d becomes b, z becomes s-like, s becomes z-like”
• “X-mirror” transform is related, allows you to make an “ambulance” sign readable in a rear-view mirror (hint: LRT with LRX)

Exercise left for the reader: Explain why one can’t use ART transform with live audio, or LRT transform with live text/speech.

[* Note: David Lynch invented the technique as far as I’m aware, used very effectively in Twin Peaks]

Moby - Porcelain (palindroMixiMordnilap) nialecroP - yboM