H.o.Me.: Heim für obsolete Medien / Home for Obsolete Media

A bilingual survey of obsolete audiovisual media and of the artists who keep them running, published for the exhibition H.o.Me. – Home for Obsolete Media at Kunsthaus Langenthal.

Edited by curator Raffael Dörig and the Swiss artist and engineer Flo Kaufmann, the book takes objects from Kaufmann's collection, magnetic tape, vinyl, audio cassette, Super 8, as points of departure for short technological and cultural histories of each format. Works by Flo Kaufmann, Christian Marclay, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Alexandra Navratil, Strotter Inst. and others show what can be made from discarded machines, and specialists in conservation, music and media offer practical advice on keeping analogue material playable. Texts by Kristen Gallerneaux, Doris Gassert, Hannes Grassegger, Martina Haidvogl, Peter Kraut and others. 208 pages with 96 illustrations, issued in a slipcase modelled on a VHS cassette box.

Kaufmann, known for his work rescuing vinyl-cutting technology, and Dörig, director of Kunsthaus Langenthal, place the book between media archaeology and artists' practice. It joins the library's holdings on sound art, media art and the material culture of recording.