A Video Store After the End of the World is an analogue video store, not a nostalgic but an alternative infrastructure set in an imaginary retro-future when cloud networks have ceased to exist. The world that has ended here is the world as a coherent narrative and cultural imaginary in a time of complex ecological disaster. The store becomes a temporary infrastructure that gathers materials into an evolving archive of practices within computation that resist the extractivist spatio-temporal regime of the cloud, with a focus on collaboratively maintained and de-scaled services of transversal and trans★feminist activists, artists and designers. The store hosts a collection of about 2000 VHS home-recorded tapes and an ongoing research which generates new audiovisual content in the form of interviews, texts and other materials. This new material gradually alters the existing content of the tapes, reformatting them into “Mix Tapes” on different themes relating to non-extractivist practices.
Current Activities
_ 5 June - 3 July 2024: The Great Netfix, Exhibition at Borough Road Gallery / Center for the Study of the Networked Image, London Southbank University.
Open weekdays 14-17 and on appointment. Opening: 5 June, 5 – 7pm. Finissage: 2 July, 6-8pm.
Featuring the amount of VHS tapes actually required to record all of the contents of a platform such as Netflix, this low-tech infrastructure uses a VHS Farm of networked recorders to “fix” streaming media, reverse-extracting them off the networks. This “unclouding” of cinematic heritage remediates the material limits of streaming media platforms, which are shown to depend on a model of automated scarcity and material confinement rather than freedom of choice and an abundance of content. The Great Netfix unfolds as a material speculation on a possible counter-model to the exploitative politics of current big-tech media infrastructures. As the recording progresses, a stack of VHS data packages is built up, which will be redistributed in a global VHS network. You too can become a worker in A Video Store After the End of the World, simply by visiting the exhibition and picking up one of the VHS data packages.
All events at Borough Road Gallery, 103 Borough Road, London, United Kingdom, SE1 0AA.
More information at https://www.centreforthestudyof.net/
The Great Netfix is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, The Swedish Research Council, K3 School of Arts & Communication (Malmo University) and is organised in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image (CSNI) at LSBU, The Digital Culture Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London and the research group Critical Infrastructures and Image Politics (CIIP) at Winchester School of Art.
Past Activities
_ 28 April – May 14 2023: A Video Store After the End of the World at Arnestedet, Enghaveparken, Enghavevej 50B, Copenhagen
As part of the series "Gang i Arnestedet", during World Capital of Architecture 2023, A Video Store After the End of the World is installed into one of the two glass pavilions at Enghaveparken. Here, one of the houses is transformed into a fictitious video store "after the end of the world", where the defunct VHS medium becomes the backdrop for a conversation about how we can collectively imagine new, more sustainable and local ways of sharing knowledge, art and culture than through the energy-intensive cloud-based networks we rely on today.
In 2023, it will be 15 years since Vesterbro's legendary video store Yvonnes Video closed after 27 years on the corner of Saxogade and Istedgade. Today, we live in a different digital reality where physical video rental no longer exists. At the entrance to Enghave Parken in Copenhagen, the window facades of a glass pavilion is used to create the feeling that even though you are standing outside, you are inside a video store. From the outside, your gaze is met by stacks of VHS videotapes and screens running a series of subtitled video interviews with designers, artists and scientists who, in different ways, reflect on and fight for a more sustainable and just digital world. Like a regular video store, we will also be open at certain times and from the street, you can enter and participate in a series of events that reflect on the sustainability of our digital lives and speculate on possible alternatives.
Event Program at Arnestedet
_29 April 15-21: Opening event “Bring Your Own Tapes” action, pre-recorded audio interview with Yvonne of “Yvonne’s Video” & VHS screening of documentary “Kim’s Video” (Ashley Sabin & David Redmon, 2023).
15-18: BYOT: Bring Your Own Tapes
We open the store by kicking off our 2-week long Bring Your Own Tapes action. Simply dig out that old VHS tape(s) you have lying around and donate them to our growing collection. We especially welcome recordings taped off the air or movies you have a special relationship to, and encourage everyone to share a few thoughts in speech or writing about what they have donated. All who donate will in return receive a copy of the store’s first Mix Tape publication.
18-19.30: Opening presentations
18.00: Welcome & introduction to A Video Store After the End of the World
18.15-19 Vesterbro Video Memories w. former video store owner Yvonne W. Larsen of Yvonne’s Video and former video store customer Annette Finnsdottir.
19.00 “Blockbuster Video”: performance lecture and introduction to Kim’s Video by Kris da Trash
19.30-21.00 “Kim’s Video”(Dir: Ashley Sabin & David Redmon, 2023)
_Sun 30 April 13-17: Counter Cloud Sewing Circle w. banner-making workshop and talks.
13.00 Open house with ongoing banner making. Come by and make your own counter-cloud slogan and banner. We will have some materials but bring your own if you can (cloth, cardboard, paint).
14.00 VHS RIP (Research In Progress) presentation by A Video Store After the End of the World featuring interview materials on non-extractivist and transfeminist techno-social practices.
15.00 Halfdan Mouritzen on data.coop, a cooperatively run and owned server and software infrastructure.
16.00 Jacob Remin on the Video Store’s collaborative local Wi-Fi hotspot.
… continuation of banner making and social hangout.
_Mon 1 May 13-16: International Workers’ Counter-Cloud Day
Bring your strike banner and/or join us in protesting the exploitative regime of Big Tech (we meet at the Video Store at 13.00 and go together to Fælledparken).
_May 12 18.00-20 Publication Launch “Counter Cloud Mixtape” & BYOT.
The publication gathers research undertaken through the Video Store into counter-cloud initiatives. A Video Store After the End of the World hosts a collection of about 2000 VHS home-recorded tapes and an ongoing research which generates new audiovisual content in the form of interviews, texts and other materials. This new material gradually alters the existing content of the tapes, reformatting them into “Mix Tapes”: publications on different themes relating to non-extractivist practices.
Mix Tape interviews:
Femke Snelting/Digital Depletion Strike, Ren Britton/Access Server, Systerserver (Mara Karayanni, Nate Wessalowski, Vo Ezn), Miranda Moss/Regenerative Energy Communities and more to come.
NB.Bring your video-tapes! Drop by on any of the above announced dates and donate one or more old VHS tapes to the video-store! You can simply leave it to be included into a growing archive or let us know if you want to tell about your tape’s contents and screen a clip from it (this will be possible during the opening program 29, 30 April and on May 12).
All events at Enghaveparken, Enghavevej 50b, 1674, Copenhagen, Denmark. Supported by Vesterbro Lokaludvalg.
Contact: videobutik@posteo.net
Thanks to: Swedish Research Council, data.coop, Fillip Danstrup, Lotte Løvholm/Collega, Jacob Remin, Lars Kristensen, Dieter Daniels, Anne, Jette, Wilbur, and not the least our mothers Sonia and Rita, who recorded most of our own tapes.
