Media Studies Workshop with Vincent Kancans

Title: Media Studies Workshop with Vincent Kancans

Date/Time: Friday October 3rd at 11:00am

 

Join us on October 3rd for the first session of this year's Media Studies Workshop, where we will discuss Vincent Kancans' dissertation chapter-in-progress, "Tape Nostalgia in the Post 9/11 Era: The Disintegration Loops." A pre-circulated paper will be shared upon RSVP.

 

**Please note that this session will exceptionally meet from 11:00am-12:30pm**

 

Abstract: More than any other work of tape music, William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops (2002-03) has showcased the material idiosyncrasies of magnetic tape, which Joanna Demers calls the ‘most potent’ signifier of death among technical media. This album was experimental in a genuinely scientific sense, germinating from the unsuccessful transfer of a decades-old tape archive to digital format. The tapes deteriorated as they circled over the playback head, producing the crackly, muffled noise of the digitized loops. The album became an unexpected elegy for September 11th: the composer finished recording on the same morning in the same city where the Twin Towers fell. After Basinski published the loops in the following two years, they received widespread acclaim, leading to orchestral renditions, ekphrastic poems, and scholarly responses.

 

Biography: Vincent Kancans is a PhD candidate in Germanic Studies and Moving Image Studies at the University of Minnesota, where he holds a fellowship in the Immigration History Research Center. This fall, he is completing his dissertation project, which he describes as a media history of magnetic tape from its invention in 1928 to its nostalgic revival in the 21st century. His dissertation argues for the unfulfilled emancipatory potential of obsolete media in the digital era. Vincent’s research areas include East German and Soviet history and culture, media theory, and sound studies.

 

 

For more upcoming sessions, click here for the Fall semester schedule.