Wednesday 30 July 2014

Mountain of Video Tape

As The Age of the Video Tape Cassette is increasingly consigned to the annals of history, I find myself burdened with, well, video tape cassettes. And with the perplexing issue of what to do with my old video tape cassettes, and especially with the ones that I recorded my favourite shows/movies onto as I now, mostly, have these on dvd. They're not readily recyclable, nor are they overly biodegradable. And second hand shops are not so interested in video tapes anymore, particularly ones with shows/movies recorded from the television.

It's a challenge that must be tackled, and one that is ripe for intelligent and innovative problem solving. But as it is me who is in charge, the solving will happen not only in defiance of intelligence or innovation but with some measure of bumbling.

After hardly any consideration, I decided to go with blithely pulling apart the video tape cassettes, discarding the plastic casings into the recycle bin (hopefully they are recyclable), and unwinding the magnetic tape and dumping it onto my coffee table - and thus creating a majestic (and mysterious) video tape mountain.

Behold the mountain (side view):


from above:


closer and more blob-like (using creepifying special effects):


The video tape mountain is really quite awesome and adds a unique ambiance to my flat. At times, I wonder if there is a hidden message contained within the mountain; perhaps someone/something is trying to communicate with me via my subconscious and has guided me to create the mountain (like in that movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind). At other times, I worry that the mountain is actually sentient and possibly mobile (like in that movie The Blob), and then I don't sleep so well. And then there are times when I don't know where to put down my cup of coffee (like in that movie I Don't Know Where to Put Down My Cup of Coffee*).

*I cannot provide a link since this is a made up movie

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