postvinyl

Abstract

The history of audio-records, record players and DJs had its ups and downs during the last 6 decades. Vinyl records had their first appearances in the 1940ies, seemed to have gone in the 80ies and reappeared gloriously in the 90ies DJ culture. The re-emergences of a medium is investigated from a media arts historical background and analysed in terms of “media cannibalism”, hybrid forms of media, and “media mimicry”. Particular interest is given to a computer game about vinyl records: The media-archeological First Person Shooter Game “postvinyl” re-enacts record playing as a game based activity. The Virtual DJ is bound to start and stop records, change tracks and recontextualize record cover graphics and vinyl record surfaces. The computer game “postvinyl” provides a DJ with the tools to control the visuals and the soundscape of a game art performance via an “Unreal Tournament” modification. Non-standard output devices like MIDI samplers, stage lighting and fogmachines can be controlled live via a computer game which becomes the interface for a DJ/ VJ. “postvinyl” is a game which plays on the ludic elements of live stage performance and a carefully conceived narrative on the history of vinyl records from 1949 to 2007.