User:Andre Castro/research/1.2/Canopy-draf01
Mp3s Are My Salesman
Project Summary
1. Please summarize your project and describe how it fits into the project area you’ve designated (300 words max):
Mp3s Are My Salesman consists of an investigation on music blogs written by individuals who make available to online users tracks from long out-of-print vinyl and cassette, ranging from 1970s Thai and African pop, to new age soundscapes*. The investigation will be centered on the motivations that drive blogs' authors to spend large amounts of time digitizing their analog music archives and making them publicly available.
Mp3s Are My Salesman will depart from the questionable premiss that these blogs attempt to create conditions for the "original" record and cassette to become a collectors' item. According to such hypothesis these objects' digital incarnations, circulating freely online, become promoters, whose aim is to increasing the originals' market value. Worthless mp3s become the salesmen of the "original" obsolete media of music distribution. In order to assess the validity of such statement and shade light on other motivations behind these online activities. The investigating will be conducted through attentively observation of blogs, interviews with its owners and users, and exploration of the meaning of the original in this particular context.
I believe that investigating this particular phenomena will not only bring an insight into it, but also foster discussion on our positions towards the digital. Hopefully clarifying why while we wish to freely access mp3s, movie's mp4s, e-books, we still desire the physical object, the rare vinyl record or the beautiful hardcover book. What is it that makes a physical mass produced object claim the status of original, while its digital counterpart is seen as a infinitely reproducible replica?
The project final form will be presented a podcast(sound essay) weaving together read essay parts with examples of music found on this blogs.