The Webpage of a CD Mixtape
In interacting with texts by Vissman and Hu, I became drawn to the idea of creating a zombie media archive.
The mixtape in the project exemplifies the aspects of phsyicality and interactivity I was aiming to achieve in this project. The media of a CD has implications far beyond that of a storage medium. This CD has been encoded to include the images from the project as well as playable versions of the tracks below. Once distributed, these sets files no longer exist as copies, but as originals. If used for music playback these CDs may come to bear larger significance than simply as a file archive.
This CD mixtape features music that I found myself drawn to while I shot the associated film photos, which I hand scanned. The photos are burned to the disc in addition to the audio portion, making the disc a mixed-media disc. The mixed-media disc is being used to include other files on the disc. The photos were scanned by hand and burned to the cd.
The CD is being produced in a case-by-case basis, with no two final tracklistings ever being the same. Do not look too closely the mixtape, or one might find themself subjected to yet another Vissman-esque list. In assembling this aspect of the project I found myself drawing internal comparisons to the copyist, Bartleby mentioned in Vissman’s essays. One who has removed himself of his office ecosystem, resigned to a single lit room in a building working late into the night creating copies of songs and film scans for a mixed media CD. This was in a further form of homage towards early mixtapes, the bonus tracks. Often unlisted, but due to the larger format of CDs vs Vinyl, artists were encouraged to add bonus tracks to albums to fill time.
The form of the CD mixtape will change, just as the mixtape itself ages. It will exist in memories and personal lists in an ever changing form, but just barely alive as an actual media.
More Information about this project, can be found at http://thanos-boyz.neocities.org/jake.html
This project was created as a larger form of the Thanos Collective. The works by the collective are described below.
We, the Thanos Collective have published this collection of works: graphic renders, an cd mixtape featuring 35mm film, and a frankfurt school rpg. The website itself has been designed and coded as a form of homage to the original internet homepages. By representing our vision in this specific format we are working with what is described by Hu as “zombie media,” in the form of text based programming, open file formats, and futuristic imagery in neu-internet nostalgia-driven forms.
The other part of my project, was coding the website for the project. I formatted each page to the specifications of who was using the page, but in a form that sought to imitate the style of the early internet. All entries on the site were hand coded by me, which means that I had to teach myself html single-pager design over the course of this project. I couldn’t cut corners, I wanted this to be as laborious as possible.
Enjoy our criticisms of hyperreality at http://thanos-boyz.neocities.org