Independent film-maker El Porter-McCullough came by to do a short interview for her blog (http://www.creativechangeni.com/) and took the opportunity to hand in two objects for repair. One of them, a broken VHS tape she had bought second hand but never even had a chance to watch, immediately inspired me.

Broken VHS tape with the film Con Air, supposedly

While El was conducting the interview she also told me how she shot all her materials for her blog on her iPhone, slightly adapted with a clever camera case to attach different lenses. I don’t think she was aware of it herself, but I found it highly ironic, and a sign of our times, that a contemporary film-maker herself waxing lyrical about the latest video mediums was at the same time sentimental about the vestiges of the technology of yesterday. Being of the same generation I can totally emphasize, having grown up with VHS and the first generation home computers, I am very happy keeping updated with the latest, but all my memories are of the old, disappearing formats.

iPhone killed the VHS, object no 11

To find a new use for the old VHS tape, and to connect it to El’s everyday use of the latest technology, I decided to use the tape itself (which is the invisible core of the VHS) as my main material, but not as intended to store images – instead I turned it into a small woven bag for her iPhone. For me, this is a suitable way to keep the technology of the past in our present, allowing for our nostalgia without loosing touch with the modern.

Object no. 11