Disc Cannot Be Read

Media archaeologists Jussi Parikka and Garnet Hertz argue that electronic media do not disappear forever; in the course of history, they occasionally awaken from their slumber and become zombie media. Disk cannot be read is a notional expedition into the forgotten corners of analog and (pre-)digital technologies, carriers, and artistic experiments dating roughly from the early 1990s. It suggests how these overlooked media, formats, devices, and software (such as VHS, Atari Video Console, floppy disks, HyperCard, CD-ROM, Macromedia Director, Flash, or Second Life) have shaped industrial as well as cultural development and research. Do they encode a unique historical, aesthetic, and social memory?

The exhibition project “Disc cannot be read” is the creative outcome of a collaboration between Vašulka Kitchen Brno (Miloš Vojtěchovský, Ondřej Merta, Kryštor Pátra), Handa Gote development & research collective and the project RetroHerna by the association Herní historie. 

In cooperation with: Dům umění města Brna, Motus z.s., RetroHerna, National Film Archive, Archive.org, Macbookárna, Favu - Atelier herní média

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Handa Gote collective, based in Prague, is dedicated to experiments in dramaturgy, incorporating non-theatrical elements into its work, and developing its own concept of post-dramatic and post-spectacular theater, with inspiration drawn from science and technology. The name of the group derives from Japanese culture, means "solder" and expresses an important aspect of their methods — Do it yourself — a playfulness, the sensual absorption of materials, recycling, folk cultures, and inspiration from non-european cultures.  In addition, media archaeology and media geology as a result of the friction between ecology and technology is another key aspect of their methods. Handa Gote currently counts Veronika Švábová, Tomáš Procházka, Jan Dőrner, Jonáš Svatoš, and Vavřinec Němec among its members. 

Back in the beginning of 1990s Miloš Vojtěchovský participated with Imaginary Museum Projects on interactive educational installation Orbis Pictus Revised, tribute to Jan Amos Komenský oeuvre, commissioned by Media Museum in ZKM Karlsruhe. Since then he has been interested in old and new media and media archeology.