FutureEverything - winner of the Lever Prize 2010

I'm a Tape Recorder Maniac!! - Pete McPartlan

2010
Single Channel Digital Video

"I'm a Tape Recorder Maniac!!" is a collection of videos by youtube user CassetteMaster. CassetteMaster is a Virginian teenager who collects vintage audio equipment. For each tape recorder he finds he films a dead-pan introduction, explains the features at length and tests them out in front of the camera. He performs small experiments - routing mics through different decks, re-recording video from betamax or trying to sync audio from wobbly tapes with the digital video.

These once loved bits of equipment are being recovered from yard sales to be breathed new life by the very technologies that have replaced them. Images of TVs rendered useless by the digital switchover in the US are now being broadcast through broadband lines - their qualities now muddied by youtube's compression algorithms.

Kline's naive experiments share in spirit with early video art, showing genuine curiosity about the medium over and above the content (occasionally interrupted by his brother beating him up or his mom sneaking into shot). It's also a reminder that the current cutting edge is tomorrow's nostalgia – maybe a criticism of fetishistic digital art.