Collecting Vinyl Records Behind the Iron Curtain: Piracy, Technology, and Social Network

The collecting of vinyl records and music tapes in communist Poland was prohibitively expensive, not to mention that official releases of recordings by Western artists hardly existed in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, informal social networks of listeners and collectors emerged in the spheres of economic collaboration (purchasing of expensive original releases), recording practices (coming together to copy music from original sources with high quality audiophile gear), distribution (sharing records and tapes), and social status (people who could not afford to assemble original releases and sought contact with other collectors). This lecture will examine the unique confluence of economic, technological, and social factors that shaped the anthropology of communication through music in communist Poland.

Dr. Dariusz Brzostek is an associate professor of cultural studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. His main research interests are sound studies, science & technology studies, science fiction, and horror studies. His current research project is concerned with early Polish electronic music (Polish Radio Experimental Studio), counterculture in Poland, Communist Era science fiction, and history of jazz. He published two books in Polish: Literature and Non-Reason: The Anthropology of Horror Story (2009) and Listening to the Noise: Sound Studies Between Expression and Experience (2014).
 
This talk is made possible by a University Studies Grant from the International Visegrad Fund.