Keyword – new wave

Szemes, Botond:

DIY Cassette Culture in State-Socialist Hungary

This paper discusses how certain features of a DIY media environment had facilitated the making of Hungarian new wave, punk, alternative and skin subcultures (mainly based on music) in the 1980s. How could be the music recorded, transformed and spread through the whole country and abroad, and how ‘alter’ music scenes could be organised without any television, radio, press or magazine coverage due to the neglect and prohibition of cultural and political governance? How does the tape cassette function as an actor in this network? What are the specialties of this environment? These issues are studied as part of a research trying to unfold the political, social and aesthetic aspects of the subculture based on the tape cassette on the basis of interviews with former band members and fans.

Keywords: noise, tape casette, new wave, samizdat, recording, actor-network, medium