Remember mixtapes? The time and care it took to collage together a series of songs to express a very specific emotion to a very special someone? It was one of the most iconic symbolic gestures of courtship throughout the 80s and 90s. Especially when blank CDs made it easier to copy music, the idea of spending so much time putting music onto a cassette, showed you really cared. As the moribund technology of cassette players becomes increasingly rare it becomes harder to appreciate the tapes.
New innovations in sharing, listening and streaming excavate this lost art into our contemporary digital culture. UK collective Stupid have created a series of QR Code adorned greeting cards that when scanned will send the receiver a Spotify playlist. The playlist is compiled and synced to individually designed QR Codes that visually communicate the intentions of the gesture.
With sharing such an important part of digital culture, bolstering it with romantic gestures such as this makes sense. The overlap of compact discs with cassettes made them a less viable option since they required less effort. With the ubiquity of mp3s making them one of the only ways people really listen to music anymore it there could be a resurgence in music related gifting of tailor made objects. The inclusion of a physical object such as a card also makes the music itself less ephemeral and more lasting. This is something that is important when considering the immateriality of something such as music in digitalized culture.
Playlist Cards
http://vimeo.com/28587602
via PSFK: http://www.psfk.com/2011/10/qr-codes-give-mixtapes-a-21st-century-update.html#ixzz1caDUTHRq
