DEATH OF ANALOG

An installation mirroring culture and memory.

 

Jaki Levy   / jakilevy@jakilevy.com

Eran Keshet / eran@161803.com

 

For this installation 2 VCRs are networked, sending a custom made VHS tape from one VCR to another. As the VHS tape travels in the space between the VCRs, the VHS signal slowly degrades in quality.

 

Level I

The decomposing signal on the VHS tape mirrors the disappearance of analog technology from our culture.

Like audio cassette tapes and other analog technology, the VCR is on its way out. With the rise of DVRs (digital video recorders) DVDs, and other digital technologies, the VCR is now a quaint thing of the past. Taking the cue from Vinyl Records, VHS tapes are now acquiring a nostalgic status.

 

Level II

In the installation, the top left image represents the “realty” as it happens in front of us - the live feed is what our eyes see.

The bottom right is what our mind keeps of that. After filtering the “feed” coming in through our eyes, each mind keeps its own memory, which is in fact, a minute fragment of the data that the actual “live feed” contained. In a day from now, what you saw in the room will remain in your brain as a few scattered images with no detail – if any.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A note on ewaste

Over 10 VCR’s were used in “research” (we broke all but 2). All VCR’s were acquired through craigslist.org or freecycle.org for free (or nearly free).

 

In order to avoid this extremely toxic and hazardous waste from going to the landfills, all “scrap” VCR’s will be disposed of responsibly. To donate or recycle ewaste, visit Per Scholas or contact the Lower East Side Ecology Center.

 

www.perscholas.org     www.lesecologycenter.org       www.freecycle.org

 

 

 

 

 

Text excerpts from

Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett

 

SYNOPSIS - KRAPP’S LAST TAPE

Krapp is an aging man who records his diary into a tape recorder.

The main theme of the play is endings, with the very title implying that Krapp will not live to (or want to) record another tape.

The play is also a metaphor for the end of history: all is lost - all we hear on the tapes, the fragments of the past, are nonsensical, dubious, devoid of meaning.

The great problem with what Beckett calls "loss of meaning" is that it works in retrospect - once life loses meaning, the past does as well.