Tellus, The Audio Cassette Magazine

TELLUS was created in 1983 at the Rum Runner Bar on Canal Street in New York City. Joseph Nechvatal, a visual artist, Claudia Gould, a curator and Carol Parkinson, a composer and staff member of Harvestworks/Studio PASS met to discuss the idea of a magazine on cassette that would feature interesting and challenging sound works. With the advent of the Walkman and the Boom Box, the editors perceived a need for an alternative to radio programming and the commercially available recordings on the market at that time.

In 1987, it was predicted that TELLUS could “overthrow the entire hierarchy of established music … through the power of home electronics, the technological revolution by which Everyman can now afford sophisticated electronic performing and recording equipment.”
— John Rockwell, The New York Times, Sunday, July 27, 1987

As a team, they began to collect, produce, document, and define the art of audio by publishing works from local, national, and international artists. They worked with contributing editors—experts in their respective fields—who proposed themes and curated the strongest works within each genre. Emerging artists were presented alongside established figures, historical works were juxtaposed with contemporary pieces, and high art with popular culture, all in an effort to encourage dialogue across artistic disciplines, including visual art, music, performance, and the spoken word.

Although TELLUS began as a subscription publication offering six issues for $20, it later expanded its distribution through an extensive international network of museums, libraries, bookstores, record shops, and dedicated listeners throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Japan. Distribution outlets included We Never Sleep (Denver), RRRecords (Massachusetts), the Walker Art Center (Minnesota), the Wexner Center for the Arts (Ohio), Bound and Unbound Books, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Printed Matter at DIA, St. Mark’s Bookshop, Tower Records, Silent Records (San Francisco), Wall of Sound (Seattle), WPA (Washington, D.C.), Art Vivant (Japan), ELB, Odd Size Records and Metamkine (France), Marginal Distribution and Art Metropole (Canada), and Staalplaat (Amsterdam).

Quotes from the Editors:
“One of the clearest things I remember about that evening at the Rum Runner bar in 1983 is that Joseph envisioned us being so successful that one day TELLUS would have its own building in Midtown. While that clearly never happened, it was that same passion and enthusiasm that we all carried with us into each diverse issue that we put into the world. Today, I see with greater clarity how important that work really was.”
— Claudia Gould

“With what seemed like the sudden post-industrial affordability of home cassette recording technology in the 1970s, combined with the simultaneous influence of DIY punk rock magazines and edgy art publication projects (such as Barbara Ess and Glenn Branca’s Just Another Asshole), the idea for TELLUS: The Audio Cassette Magazine came naturally. Steeped in the aftermath of Fluxus and the expanded arts, TELLUS came together at the very moment when anyone could produce art noise. Anyone could record and distribute it. And so we did.”
— Joseph Nechvatal

“Founded in 1977, Harvestworks (also known as StudioPASS—the Public Access Synthesizer Studio) was established by artists to provide affordable access to advanced sound equipment and foster new experimental sound works. The StudioPASS environment had a dynamic, hands-on, inside-the-electronics creative spirit that was open and receptive to the new ideas brought in by the young, twenty-something TELLUS team. They took us under their wing, and we became a program of Harvestworks.”
— Carol Parkinson