hello. It is Saturday evening and there is a bluetit singing very loudly outside our open windows. The sun is setting and tonight I have moved out of it’s direct ray to write you, though because of the setting sun I can’t see the screen very clearly. Sam is cooking us an early dinner whilst waiting for his laptop to charge so that we can watch the second half of Liverpool v Fulham.
This afternoon I spent two hours moving sounds from the Lift the Ban action in Trafalgar Square to Bethlehem (radio alhara), New York (wave farm), Argentina (muito radio), and Oslo (radiOrakel). I mixed Radio With Palestine, Radio With Iran #42 from home on a single machine. I had very strong period cramps. Sam cooked us fried potatoes and egg for lunch.
The texture of this transmission made my skin crawl at times. As it was a silent protest the audible content came mostly from the bystanders and police. I heard a voice of someone, who I think was a protestor, telling other protestors not to boo and yell shame at the police but to cheer on those who were being arrested. I heard police officers use their nicey-nicey voices to apologise to bystanders they had bumped into when dragging away protestors, presumably as they headed back into the square to arrest more. I heard HIGNFY-esque quips and sarcastic one uping between two middle aged men. It was embarrassing to be sharing with the world how wet english resistance is. It seems insincere, it seems disproportionate to the situation in Gaza, in Iran, to the political moment we are in.
At the time of writing you there are 212 reported arrests, with 92 arrests happened whilst we were on air. Which is quite extraordinary.
The title for this weeks blogpost is inspired by a current mood my friends and I seem to be experiencing.
Often these videos were no longer that 4:00 minutes, imported fast fashion hauls with license free muzak, hairstyle tutorials, short one scene straight to camera updates on their life.
I also used the WayBack machine to read their teenage blog. Something I followed religiously as a 15-17 year old.
Everything from the old interfaces, the profile photos, the suggested videos, the 2013 embedded twitter feeds saturated me in nostalgia. I did wonder if using the WayBack machine like this was immoral. This person had made the choice to remove their teenage internet activity from the web, and I was purposefully going against that choice to watch.
Talking about it with Christine we came to the conclusion that in 2012 not only was our internet usage quite naïve, but posting was for most a hobby. There was little to no precedent for money making or career building. In the present day it is significant less socially ostracising to have an online personality, or to watch mostly non-legacy media. This alters who for and how current internet media is made.
Now a lot of old hobbyist channels are hidden. I personally am very regretful that 14 year old Mort chose to delete all their videos rather than just private them.
It was nice, for a moment, to visit a time when the digital world felt separate from the physical world.
Liverpool won 2-0 whilst I was writing you. I’ve made myself a hot water bottle for the cramps.
Mortimer Drew ~ blog 