Media themselves often serve as objects of memory, as exemplified by http://tapedeck.org/, a website which archives images of vintage audio cassette tapes.
There is an event that happens every year in New Zealand called Camp A Low Hum (next year it will be in the abandoned school in Bulls called the Flock House).
This is probably the closest thing anyone in New Zealand will get to experience a "real camp gig" without any real officials or VIP passes, with all kinds of bands flown in from around the world (around 100 bands over 3 days) play between 3 stages over the widespread area. Whats mostly interesting is how a certain celebration of nostalgia takes place.
A competition is run every year at this event where camp-goers are able to hand in and swap mixtape projects with each other, but have to be presented with a theme. For example, the tape I handed in included tracks from Styx and Oingo Boingo and instead of using a normal cassette holder, I unravelled another tape and wrapped it between two old hard-disks. On return I recieved a tape in a hand-made fleece bag, that looked like a bigger tape and inside was a walkman with the tape in it as well as an encompanying piece of paper which mapped out the strangers nostalgic experience related with each track she had put on the cassette.
Its a bit difficult to explain, but it enables you to gain the perspective of seeing how other people are able to gain a different level of nostalgia through the use of media forms that accompany them.
This is the website of the camp: http://alowhum.com/
Thanks for sharing, Kermath. This seems to connect up with the strange phenomenon of boutique record labels returning to cassette tapes as a release format.
The Guardian has an article on the 'return of the audio cassette' here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/29/audio-cassette-comeback
There is an event that happens every year in New Zealand called Camp A Low Hum (next year it will be in the abandoned school in Bulls called the Flock House).
ReplyDeleteThis is probably the closest thing anyone in New Zealand will get to experience a "real camp gig" without any real officials or VIP passes, with all kinds of bands flown in from around the world (around 100 bands over 3 days) play between 3 stages over the widespread area. Whats mostly interesting is how a certain celebration of nostalgia takes place.
A competition is run every year at this event where camp-goers are able to hand in and swap mixtape projects with each other, but have to be presented with a theme. For example, the tape I handed in included tracks from Styx and Oingo Boingo and instead of using a normal cassette holder, I unravelled another tape and wrapped it between two old hard-disks. On return I recieved a tape in a hand-made fleece bag, that looked like a bigger tape and inside was a walkman with the tape in it as well as an encompanying piece of paper which mapped out the strangers nostalgic experience related with each track she had put on the cassette.
Its a bit difficult to explain, but it enables you to gain the perspective of seeing how other people are able to gain a different level of nostalgia through the use of media forms that accompany them.
This is the website of the camp: http://alowhum.com/
Thanks for sharing, Kermath. This seems to connect up with the strange phenomenon of boutique record labels returning to cassette tapes as a release format.
ReplyDeleteThe Guardian has an article on the 'return of the audio cassette' here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/29/audio-cassette-comeback