ENGL 4619 - Writing on Tape in the 1970s

(crosslisted) AMST 4619, MUSIC 4454
(LA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

J. Braddock.

This course examines the way audiotape both corrupted and enabled the aesthetic and political culture of the 1970s. The possibilities of editing (via the cut, the loop, the overdub, the mixtape) on one hand, and the seeming capacity for indiscriminate recording of sound on the other, revealed tape to be a medium with claims both for authentic documentation (and also surveillance), and wide aesthetic reference (but also mass deception). With one ear to the state and another to the music industry, this class will focus on the way politics and the arts responded to and incorporated the new technology. Artists include Andy Warhol, Steve Reich, Samuel Beckett, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Laurie Anderson, The Firesign Theatre, Dr. Dre, Marley Marl.