Archiving and Annotating Underground VHS Tapes in Breaking Culture
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FADING MEMORIES: Archiving and Annotating Underground VHS Tapes in Breaking Culture Student Author Saad Mukhtar is a graduating senior in the School Technology Studies Department at Rensselaer Poly- of Interdisciplinary Studies studying film/video and technic Institute and of the History Department and the American studies. He is researching the transnational Information Trust Institute at the University of Illinois, adaptation of Hip Hop dance, and archiving audiovisual Urbana- Champaign; and as a postdoctoral fellow in mediums. He has traveled the world to document break- African and African American Studies at Washington ing culture in countries such as South Korea, Japan, University in St. Louis. the Netherlands, and China. In fall 2018 he will attend graduate school in Purdue’s American Studies Program. Ben Lawton (PhD UCLA, 1976) was cofounder and, for many years, Mentors Director of the Interdisciplinary Film/Video Studies Program at Rayvon Fouché is Director of the Purdue. He is a recipient of the American Studies Program and campus- wide Amoco (now Mur- Professor in the School of Interdis- phy) Best Undergraduate Teacher ciplinary Studies at Purdue Univer- Award. He was visiting professor sity. His work explores the multiple at Indiana University in 1987 and at Dartmouth College intersections between cultural in 2000. He has published widely on Italian and Italian representation, racial identification, American cinema. His translation of Pier Paolo Paso- and technological design. He holds lini’s Heretical Empiricism (Indiana University Press, a BA in Humanities from the University of Illinois, 1988, expanded, NAP, 2006) is widely cited. Most Urbana- Champaign, and an MA and PhD in Science recently he coedited Revisioning Terrorism: A Human- and Technology Studies from Cornell University. Prior istic Perspective (Purdue University Press, 2016). He is to Purdue, he served on the faculty of the Science and a retired veteran of the Persian Gulf War. 32 Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research: Volume 8, Fall 2018 http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5703/1288284316737 During the 1990s, the culture flourished as a sub- Abstract culture and underground networked community. No mainstream films were released. As a result, artists This project examines the oral history of the orig- and event promoters distributed VHS tapes of solos, inal dance style of Hip Hop, breaking. Breaking documentaries, and annual events—most being is performed to music in sequences of movement independent productions, with only a few being while standing, on the floor, and in the air. There commercially sponsored later in the decade. Steffan is minimal quantitative or qualitative data about “Mr. Wiggles” Clemente, in an interview at Purdue the practitioners and scholars in its culture. Most University, confirms that VHS tapes served as a tool of the information regarding its history is spoken to “dump” footage, since “before that, getting footage orally or locked away in Video Home System was impossible.” Furthermore, he comments on how (VHS) tapes. This impacts future generations who VHS tape distribution was analogous to a “bboy/bgirl want to learn the culture and dance because pri- record deal” or “underground hustle,” an entrepre- mary resources are limited and fragmented on the neurial generation of income. As a result, VHS tapes Internet. A hundred VHS tapes, encoded in analog became traded commodities that doubled as pillars of frequency modulation (FM) on magnetic tape, knowledge for breaking culture. Clemente calls them were transcoded into 10-bit uncompressed and “ancient scrolls” (Clemente 2017). Clemente confirms H.264 digital file formats over a 3-month period. that his videos, Breakaway Magazines Vol. 1–3, were Social media was used to crowdsource metada- inspired by Kenneth “Ken Swift” Gabbert’s videos, ta on selected video clips. It was predicted that 7- Gems Video Magazines Vol. 1–2. Both Clemente metadata collection would contribute to annotat- and Gabbert are members of Rock Steady Crew, the ing video clips where supplemental explanations group of dancers featured in films during the 1980s were nonexistent on the Internet or inaccessible mentioned earlier. Their VHS tapes were the first to noncommunity members. Established commu- batch of videos distributed about breaking culture. nity members collectively identified and verified As an effort to preserve these artifacts, both their people, places, and back stories in the video clips. volumes were digitized and annotated with notes This suggests that memories of moments are still during the research process. shared orally in the culture but not widely known or documented. According to Fogarty (2012), both Clemente and Gabbert were setting up “imagined affinities” for the Mukhtar, S. (2018). Fading memories: Archiving community. Breakers shared commonality in medi- and annotating underground VHS tapes in break- ated communication that took place through VHS ing culture. Journal of Purdue Undergraduate tapes. In 7- Gems Video Magazine Vol. 1 (Gabbert & Research, 8, 32–41. https://doi.org/10.5703 Clemente 1996), Gabbert opens the introduction with /1288284316737 a setting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: “We’re going to start off this seven grandmasters video tape, we’re Keywords going to start building with y’all, and hopefully with our trip over here we can build with y’all more on digital humanities, breaking, dance, film studies, the capoeira influence that has been seen a lot since American studies, archival studies, Hip Hop the early 90s in breaking” (Gabbert & Clemente studies 1996). Distributors shared their video collection with others in an effort to promote “cultural exchange and knowledge building,” but there were internal barriers. Memories Fading Breaking, notoriously known as “breakdancing,” In many instances, a dancer would receive a “copy has travelled through mainstream peaks and under- of a copy of a copy of a video,” which eventually ground valleys from its creation in the 1970s to the led to VHS tapes becoming safeguarded (Fogarty Youth Olympics, planned for October 2018. Urban 2012). Toronto- based breaker Joseph “J- Rebel” youth in New York City created their own style of Hersco states dancers “did not share” tapes because dance, which was featured in early 1980 films such “there were no formal ways to learn how to break” as Style Wars (1983), Flashdance (1983), Wild Style (Hersco 2017). Hersco is suggesting that VHS tapes (1983), and Beat Street (1984). During this time the were rare resources. Miami- based breaker Rodolfo dance made a transnational impact, spreading to “Rudi Goblen” Cano remembers when he searched Europe and Asia through press tours and promoted for these resources by “calling Blockbuster’s and performances. Mainstream exposure declined in mom- and- pop shops trying to find Beat Street, Wild 1990s and resurfaced during the 2000s. Style, and Style Wars,” which evidently took him “a 33 long time” (Cano 2017). As an alternative method genres of dance have borrowed without giving of “digging” for these films, he was able to find credit to their rightful owners.” The life expectancy short clips of breaking on the television program, of magnetic tape medium is estimated to be 10 to Yo! MTV Raps (1988–1995). The program featured 30 years. This largely depends on how the objects hundreds of rap music videos and is credited to have are stored and the quality of the tape from the put “hip- hop on the map around the globe” (Weing- manufacturer (Council on Library and Information arten 2018). One particular video Cano remembers Resources 2017). Overall, the medium is considered is Chief Rocka (1992) by musical group Lords of the to be obsolete with production of VCRs ending in Underground. The music video included breaking 2006. As Fouché (2012) states, “Hip- hop is about for approximately “2 seconds,” and Cano “would the music and the cultural expression of a sense, a look at those 2 seconds and rewind those 2 seconds” feeling, or a style”; therefore, in an effort to pre- to learn how to “top- rock” and do “footwork,” serve the first texts in breaking culture, this project two essential elements of the dance (Cano 2017). was created. Recording home videos (VHS tapes) using a video- cassette recorder (VCR) was common in the 1990s. For Cano, these short video clips served as a learn- Materials AND Methods ing tool until he eventually found and rented Beat Materials Street. His rental accrued “eighty dollars” worth of late fees, and that was okay because the video was Archiving Workstation sacred, like the “Bible” (Cano 2017). Both Hersco I conducted the first part of the study by adapting and Cano are well known for being members of the materials and workflow in Ashley Blewer’s “minimal breaking community with distinct styles, or flavors, viable workstation” (MVW) documentation (Blewer and have established their brand names in the local community of Toronto and Miami respectively. Furthermore, it is possible to link their legacy in Materials Group breaking to films and home videos archived in this Dell Optiplex 7010 Computer research project. Dell 1908FPb Computer Seagate 2TB External Computer In the 2000s, technological innovations such as the Hard Drive Internet and video games changed how new genera- tions encountered breaking. There was a shift from Panasonic AG- 1980 Audio/Visual Equipment analog to digital storage mediums. Noncommunity Sony SLV- 951 Audio/Visual Equipment members were able to share any type of video by AVT- 8710 (Multi- Standard Audio/Visual Equipment uploading content to YouTube, for example. As a Time Base Corrector) result, as stated by Steven “Zulu Gremlin” Roybal, Xdimax Grex 7.4 Audio/Visual Equipment many videos only “show the art, but not ask the (Video Stabilizer) questions of what the art is, and that would make it confusing for the world.” Unfortunately, in the past, Blackmagic Intensity Audio/Visual Equipment “the media falsely named everything ‘breakdanc- Shuttle ing,’” which included many dance styles in one, Blackmagic H.264 Audio/Visual Equipment such as “popping, locking, and breaking” (Roybal Pro Recorder 2017).