Duration: 15.12.2021 – 30.06.2022

From the 1970s to the 1990s, the music cassette made a significant contribution to the lasting democratization of the music industry and the proliferation of marginal genres and styles on informal markets. The Cassette Underground approaches the cassette cultures of North Rhine-Westphalia through archival practices: the punk, new wave, and industrial cassettes of the distributor 235 at the Düsseldorf IMAI, the cassette collections of Turkish guest workers at DOMiD in Cologne, the zines, flyers, and stickers at Afas in Duisburg, and the critical tape-digging program of the Interkultur Ruhr initiative in Essen. With their different collection strategies, indexing methods, and research interests, these institutions do not only facilitate research into the mechanisms of production and distribution, but also allow for a reflection on archiving and presentation strategies for marginal and fragile audiovisual media.

The Inter Media Art Institute is dedicated to exhibiting, archiving, and distributing time-based media art.
More info about Foundation IMAI

Wouter de Romph is a musicologist who approaches the field from both a theoretical and practical point of view. After having studied Arts & Culture Studies and Philosophy (BA) in Rotterdam, he completed his studies in Applied Musicology (MA) in Utrecht, with a thesis on the D.I.Y. cassette networks of the 1980’s. Since, he has been involved in the music industry through his work for recordlabel, store and distributor Clone Records as well as through his role as DJ and radiomaker.

For this Podcast episode Olga Felker met Wouter de Romph and Linnea Semmerling to learn more about the project The Cassette Underground

EVENTS FOR THE PROJECT
THE CASSETTE UNDERGROUND

03 July 2022, 20:00 – 04 July 2022, 02:30
SDV Goes Osdorp
A Cassette Night at the Salon des Amateurs
More info about the event