Tag Archives: Cassette Culture

This Window releases – still available to download

You can only eat so many Easter Eggs and drink so much Coke.

Cassette Culture 1989 – 2009 by This Window is still available to download.

Cassette Culture was an offshoot of the mail art movement of the 1970s and 1980s, it emerged from the DIY ethic of punk. 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 transported. 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.  Continue reading ?

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

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.

Music Releases

See This Window the pseudonym of Peter Bright.

All my love Marni

My Grandparents

Related articles

IUOMA – music and art

Mail-Artist since:
1986
My Website:
http://www.thiswindow.org
Why I am involved in Mail-Art:

Was involved in the cassette / music side of mailart in the 1980’s /90’s. The whole idea of a network of artists connected by the postal system appealed to me and was an antidote to the stranglehold the ‘Art / Music’ establishment had over my creativity.

I have always considered mailart to be one of the major unsung heroes of Art History and every effort should be made to raise its profile.

Here are a few network related things I have done this millennium. http://www.thiswindow.org/Mail_Art/?cat=3

From profile page on: International Union of Mail-Artists – IUOMA

There is a brief retrospective interview looking back at the early days and the origins of ‘This Window’ in the November 2009 issue of ‘The Living Archive of Underground Music’.

“I think my first exposure to Peter Bright’s This Window project came with this tape on the IRRE label from Germany. Peppered with experimentalism and a sense of wander and wonder” Don Campau – Read more…

The early experiences of the audio mail art scene by Peter Bright (artist, This Window)

Published on: ‘The Living Archive of Underground Music‘

If you sat me down and asked me what were the main reasons for getting involved in this emotionally draining and sometimes very unrewarding ARTFORM called ‘home taping’, then I would say two things:

  • In the early 1970’s when I was about 13 or 14 years old I loved ‘Motown’ and ‘Led Zeppelin’ (my music tastes were very eclectic). In the UK there was a TV show called ‘Top of the Pops’, which shaped the adolescent pop culture. The stars appeared on a Thursday night and lip-synched to their hits. Then one night (1972) a band called ‘Roxy Music’ appeared and turned the whole thing on its head. I can still see the performance in my mind’s eye. I had suddenly been exposed to ‘Art School Rock’. They were remarkably radical, different musically and visually.
  • Around the same time (1973) an album was released on ‘Virgin Records’ called ‘The Faust Tapes’. This was a marketing experiment which had a retail price of 49 pence (UK) – so lots of people bought it and a lot of people threw it into the trash. The German band Faust were without a record deal and their producer Uwe Nettlebeck gave these tapes to Virgin for free. These apparently thrown together bits of tape noises, sounds, songs etc. were all mangled together – well, that is what most people thought. In reality it was an exceptionally well crafted piece of work and was the inspiration for my EEtapes release ‘Extraction’ in 1989.

These two things combined with going to Art School eventually got me involved in experimenting with recorded sound. The first machines I used were a Phillips reel to reel and a budget priced cassette recorder.

Read More…

 

Support This Window by buying a track from iTunes

This%20Window

Related articles

My grandparents – postcard

Here is another recycled postcard of my grandparents originally used in 1999 as a promo for inmemoryof.co.uk.

TEXT BELOW FROM SITE

Sam Bright, was what you would call a real character. He couldn’t wait for the moment to tell a story or crack a joke. A soldier, a coalminer, a chef at Blackpool Casino, a fish and chip shop owner, a shopkeeper, a pallbearer, these were a few of his careers.

During the First World War he found himself as a cook, responsible for the well being of his comrades. The meagre rations that the army supplied needed supplementing by scavenging. Often he went on ‘raiding parties’, sneaking into French farms, pilfering this and that. He once found himself in a Frenchman’s dovecote. This was nearly his final mission. The farmer gave chase and then levelled his loaded rifle at him. He wasn’t really proud of his thieving but as he explained, it was war and his mates were hungry. One of his most poignant tales was about a march to the ‘front’. In the hedgerow Sam spotted a ham bone which had a bit of meat left on it. They got to the frontline and as the history books tell us conditions were appalling and the rations were low. Sam remembered the ham bone, and on the march back retrieved it from the hedge to use in the next stew.

Trench warfare lost him many friends and the sight of an eye. He spotted a German sniper who unfortunately spotted him. He was wounded and his commanding officer suggested that he remained at his post to give his comrades a better chance to fallback, promising his family a medal for his sacrifice. I’m not sure what he said but he was invalided out of service and was treated at Guys Hospital in London, where they patched him up and cosmetically made a fine job. Apparently this damaged eye was assisted by a rabbit’s nerve.(?)

When Mary was in her teens she was aprenticed to a chemist in Sheffield, travelling by train every day from her home.

She was the woman behind the scenes in their grocer’s shop, where they were famous for their home made ‘ice lollies‘. People still remember them for their delicious treats, which they made from ‘Tizer‘ and other bottles of ‘pop’.

She was a ‘Spiritulist’ by conviction, with local business men and tradesmen alike knocking on her door for advice and guidance, and her ‘messages’ influenced deals and life changes all around her. The respect she had was far larger than her diminutive size.

Related articles

Whatever Happened to the Space Age?

Whatever Happened to the Space Age

£57.17

Original painting by Peter Bright.
Media: Painting and Screen Print on canvas, signed and dated 2011.
Size: 500mm x 400mm
Related articles

Here is another recycled postcard

Here is another recycled postcard that was originally a promo for ‘Cassette Culture‘

 

A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope.

In some countries, it is possible to send them for a lower price than for a letter. Stamp collectors distinguish between postcards (which require a stamp) and postal cards (which have the postage pre-printed on them). While a postcard is usually printed by a private company, individual or organization, a postal card is issued by the relevant postal authority.

The United States Postal Service defines a postcard as: rectangular, at least 31?2 inches (88.9 mm) high × 5 inches (127 mm) long × 0.007 inches (0.178 mm) thick and no more than 41?4 inches (108 mm) high × 6 inches (152.4 mm) long × 0.016 inches (0.406 mm) thick.[2] However, some postcards have deviated from this (for example, shaped postcards).

The study and collecting of postcards is termed deltiology.

Related articles
Cassette Culture 1989 - 2009 by This Window
Image by This Window via Flickr