Materializing Memories by Susan Aasman Andreas Fickers Joseph Wachelder

Author:Susan Aasman, Andreas Fickers, Joseph Wachelder [Susan Aasman, Andreas Fickers, Joseph Wachelder]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781501333248
Goodreads: 39740800
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.
Published: 2018-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Between high technology and pirate modernization

German materialist media theory provides an important point of reference for my considerations (Kittler 1990; 2002). Yet this theory is limited in that it only stresses structural issues (Parikka 2012a), which is why it seems productive to supplement it with thinking in terms of new materialisms. As Jussi Parikka has noted in this respect: “technological specificity or physics specificity is perhaps only one possible avenue for such ‘new materialist’ media analyses” (Parikka 2012b, 96). I take this opportunity to argue the importance of local specificity, which is not always accounted for, and if it is, it is expressed at the level of production. But in (semi-)peripheral countries “production” has a different meaning than in countries from the center.

In this alternative understanding, new technological solutions become a manifestation of a type of modernization typical of peripheral or semi-peripheral countries, which Ravi Sundaram described as “pirate modernization” (Sundaram 2010). Arguably, the VCR was an instrument of such modernization, which refers to processes set in motion with the help of new, relatively cheap technologies “beyond the West,” regarded as the economic and cultural “center.” And yet, pirate modernization, with its dependence on piracy and recycling, appears to conflict with the simplistic formula of peripheries striving to copy the central model and yet continue lagging behind the core countries. This is because, as a rule, peripheries use imported equipment to develop their own, unique uses of technology and their own innovations (which are often cheap, makeshift, and poorly designed). This poses a challenge to scholars, given that these developments can hardly be filed under categories such as subversion and innovation, which are so crucial in cultural studies. What is more, Sundaram’s approach tends to relegate overtly political activity to the margins. Given the tendency to enhance the martyrological facet of the fight against communism in domestic debates on the People’s Republic, video recorders, too, are often presented as instruments used in defiance of the oppressive system. Of course, it would be difficult to ignore this side of the story: at the same time, one would do well to remember that, even in the highest echelons of political oppositions, James Bond films were being watched alongside overtly engagé films as part of anti-communist screenings. The activity that went on around VCRs was in equal measure significant and commonplace, and usually devoid of any ideological overtones.

Let us return to VCRs and cassettes, the operating of which was allegedly no different to operating tapes in an audio tape recorder. But different it was: while an audio tape from anywhere in the world could easily be played in Poland, films were a different story. For one thing, the technology of TV sets posed a huge problem. In one of his blog posts, journalist Wojciech Orliński refers to “generation channel 36”—the then young people who helped their parents connect the longed-for VCR (or the occasional “TV game” or computer) to the TV set (Orliński 2013). An aerial socket was being used to that end

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