Category Archives: Cassette Culture

Hybrid performance – Pillage art historical styles #keywords

The cliché ‘we can learn from history’ is in many cases nonsense – we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. We do however have to ride that fast learning curve to create a new product and to have new ideas.

Business is not a static immovable object it has to evolve. We have to morph into different markets, pushing our ideas onto the next phase – this is what artists do. The work of artists (painters) is to reference film and digital imaging, sampling, graphic design, fashion, urban architecture, comics and photography etc. Pillage art historical styles, including Pop art, Post-Painterly Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism, alongside referencing other cultures. This hybridity allows an exploration of different cultural and technological concerns, allowing boundaries to be broken and new frontiers challenged.

Judgement : What is going against you »
If you allow fear to stop you from taking a chance or a new possibility then you will lose out. Do not ignore the new opportunities being presented to you – a decision, new job or relationship could change your life for the better. Do not refuse change when change at this time is vital – feel the fear and do it anyway. Outcomes may well be delayed, however this is a time for positive action and not passiveness.

We have now become at home with the Internet and its optimized retail opportunities. The steps the artists of the 1880’s were looking for was a break from observed representation. Symbolism and its search for new boundaries of creativity within literature and poetry began to point the way for these young men, their almost post modernist approach to their art looked to steal ideas from every form of intellectual discipline. These painters, over a hundred years ago, were a clique and were accused by their contemporaries of being too intellectual to be serious painters. Search Engine Optimization is also a mysterious clique with its differing ethics, a structured discipline but it is time to re-invent Search Engine Optimization to get our businesses (our art) moving forward.

The Star : Outcome »
This is a time of good luck and fortune, perhaps after a period of struggle and heartache. Good health, possibly after a time of illness, and good fortune that will give you a new zest of life. If considering a new love affair, new job or career, or travel, then go for it. You may also receive a gift or gifts!

Web designers and SEO gurus are doing the same now; they are copying code, search words, keywords and optimization tricks from each other. #painters #artists

How you feel about yourself now »
You are feeling that things will go your way, you believe in fairness and justice in all things. If you are considering partnership issues, personal or professional, dealings will go well. Perhaps you are about to sign a contract or legal document, this will be beneficial to you. If someone has done wrong to you it will be put right and you will feel justice has been done.

The ‘audio artist’ had to rethink the whole creative process

How do you make something that has two physical sides have no sides at all?

Compact Cassettes, were the way that home recording artists distributed their ART. Cassettes consisted of two miniature spools, between which magnetically coated plastic tape was passed and wound between them. These spools and other mechanical (physical) parts were contained and supported inside a protective plastic shell. Two stereo pairs of tracks (four in total) or two monaural analog audio tracks could be recorded onto this fragile tape; one stereo pair or one monophonic track is played or recorded when the tape is moving in one direction and the second pair when moving in the other direction – thus creating two sides. Cassettes produced a lot of ‘hiss’ and were a very poor method of archiving and storing audio. The trick was to get as much recorded volume onto the magnetic surface with out making the ‘music’ distort.

With the conception of downloading audio, the ‘audio artist’ had to rethink the whole creative process.

This is probably my most favorite This Window cassette release. http://www.thiswindow.org/ex1.html

Released in 1989 on a Belgian label it was remixed and is available at most retail download stores. It was always meant to be a composition of two halves – side A and side B but neither CDs or mp3s have sides. The remixes have been split into four sections and when played randomly on a player manage to work. The original concept of two halves has now become one of many plausible combinations – how weird is that? – When it was conceived (by four naked people in a bath) this was not an option.

See This Window the pseudonym of Peter Bright.

Cassette Culture was an ART network (thiswindow.org)
What do you do and how do you get people to buy your stuff if you own an online store? Creating a focal point online that is memorable, is important to your Art business (or any business) and vital in perpetuating all the hard work you have done with your website’s creation. Read more: http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/do-people-make-impulse-art-purchases/#ixzz1qOsIxeva
Compact Cassette. (2012, March 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:33, March 28, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Compact_Cassette&oldid=484223545

Cassette Culture an art network

Cassette Culture was an offshoot of the mail art movement of the 1970s and 1980s, it emerged from the DIY ethic of punk. In the UK cassette culture was born during the post-punk period, 1978–1984, extending through the late ’80s and into the ’90s. It was a postal-based network identical to the mail art scene.

The packaging and designing of the insert sleeve of cassette releases was an important part of the movement, a high degree of creativity and originality was visable in the execution of the overall appearence of the prioduct. Most of the packaging relied on traditional plastic shells with a photocopied “J-card” insert but some artists broke away from the restrictive dimensions of the audio cassette format, either in a slick graphic way or by taking an anti-art stand point – using a conceptual, DADA methodology .

BWCD released a cassette by Japanese noise artist Aube that came tied to a blue plastic ashtray shaped like a fish. EEtapes of Belgium release of This Window “Extraction 2” was packaged with an X-ray of a broken limb in 1995. The Barry Douglas Lamb album “Ludi Funebres” had the cassette box buried in some earth contained in a larger outer tin and covered in leaves.

The European scene was very active during this period with exceptional ‘labels’ appearing in Germany and Belgium.

IRRE Tapes (Germany) run by Matthias Lang evolved out of the IRRE Fanzine which he published regularly during the early 1980’s covering New Wave, Post Punk and the German Underground. This European cassette label helped to spread the word around the world, supporting the independent, self financed artist, releasing material by the likes of Brume, Maeror Tri, City Of Worms and This Window. His eclectic taste covered the whole range of the DIY, Independent Underground music scene from Experimental Electronica to Guitar Pop.

Below is an extract from an interview on The Living Archive Of Underground Music, which is an archive dedicated to Cassette culture, home taping, tape trading and mail art from the 1980s to the present. The Living Archive Of Underground Music is written and edited by Don Campau. Read more…

Wie hattest Du das Label bekannt gemacht? Durch Magazine, andere Labels, Radio?

How did you spread the word of the tape label? Magazines, other labels, radio?

Tja ob IRRE Tapes je bekannt war? Wenn dann eher durch das unabhängige Netzwerk in der ganzen Welt, damals konnte man auch noch kostengünstig Tapes in andere Länder schicken… die Mehrzahl der Tapes wurde mit Gleichgesinnten in der ganzen Welt getauscht, so richtig kommerziell verkauft wurden die wenigsten – dafür hab ich heute aber auch noch unzählige Kisten alter Tapes die ich im Tausch damals bekommen hatte. Es gab zwar auch kommerziellere Vertriebe, die aber nie wirklich lange z.B. der tolle 235 Laden ich glaube in Bad Honnef. Die hatten auch mit tolle Mailorder-Kataloge, geniale Ideen z.B. gab es da das Tape des Monats das man per Dauerauftrag bekommen konnte……

Well, if IRRE-tapes were really that popular? If so, the independent network all around the world helped to make the label popular…at that time postage for tapes to be sent to other countries was quite cheap…the majority of tapes was swapped with artists all around the world and only a very few were really commercially sold. I still have many boxes full of old tapes that I received by trade. There were also more commercial distributors that never existed so long, like the 235-shop in Bad Honnef. They had great mailorder-catalogues and it was even possible to get there the „tape of the month“ by periodical payment order.

The Insanely Happy EP – Insane from Belgium

Alain Neffe is probably one of the most influential ‘cassette underground’ people around, his Belgian label Insane released many of the 1980?s heroes of the home taping and mail art scenes. Here is an opportunity to get a collectors edition … Continue reading ?

Intrendent – Interview German supporter and releaser of the cassette culture period.
Who is Peter Bright? – from Wikipedia (myartmydisease.wordpress.com)
Mail Art – archive (myartmydisease.wordpress.com)

Peter Bright – Printmaker, Artist, Musician

(aka This Window)….Just another blog….my art and my disease