A Dialogue on Cassette Tapes and their Memories

Abstract

The interest for lost media practices and materials appears intrinsic to contemporary popular and maker culture — a post-digital culture that through vinyl, cassette tapes, print, chemical photography, etc. revisits a time before the digital revolution. How are we to perceive this re-investment in history and old technologies? It is obvious to regard this as nostalgia and a trendy taste for lo-fi. However, the aim of this article is to develop an understanding of how these practices also express a critique of contemporary digital culture. This critique feeds on two competing perspectives on the materiality of media technologies: historical materialism and speculative realism, and hence also two perspectives on artistic media practice as a form of research.