Underground: The Secret Life of Videocassettes in Iran (Infrastructures)

How Iranians forged a vibrant, informal video distribution infrastructure when their government banned all home video technology in 1983. In 1983, the Iranian government banned the personal use of home video technology. In Underground , Blake Atwood recounts how in response to the ban, technology enthusiasts, cinephiles, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens forged an illegal but complex underground system for video distribution. Atwood draws on archival sources including trade publications, newspapers, memoirs, films, and laws, but at the heart of the book lies a corpus of oral history interviews conducted with participants in the underground. He argues that videocassettes helped to institutionalize the broader underground within the Islamic Republic. As Atwood shows, the videocassette underground reveals a great deal about how people construct vibrant cultures beneath repressive institutions. It was not just that Iranians gained access to banned movies, but rather that they established routes, acquired technical knowledge, broke the law, and created rituals by passing and trading plastic videocassettes. As material objects, the videocassettes were a means of negotiating the power of the state and the agency of its citizens. By the time the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance lifted the ban in 1994, millions of videocassettes were circulating efficiently and widely throughout the country. The very presence of a video underground signaled the failure of state policy to regulate media. Embedded in the informal infrastructure--even in the videocassettes themselves--was the triumph of everyday people over the state. In 1983, the Iranian government banned the personal use of home video technology. In Underground, Blake Atwood recounts how in response to the ban, technology enthusiasts, cinephiles, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens forged an illegal but complex underground system for video distribution. Atwood draws on archival sources including trade publications, newspapers, memoirs, films, and laws, but at the heart of the book lies a corpus of oral history interviews conducted with participants in the underground. He argues that videocassettes helped to institutionalize the broader underground within the Islamic Republic.00As Atwood shows, the videocassette underground reveals a great deal about how people construct vibrant cultures beneath repressive institutions. It was not just that Iranians gained access to banned movies, but rather that they established routes, acquired technical knowledge, broke the law, and created rituals by passing and trading plastic videocassettes. As material objects, the videocassettes were a means of negotiating the power of the state and the agency of its citizens. By the time the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance lifted the ban in 1994, millions of videocassettes were circulating efficiently and widely throughout the country. The very presence of a video underground signaled the failure of state policy to regulate media. Embedded in the informal infrastructure?even in the videocassettes themselves?was the triumph of everyday people over the state Cover Half Title Series Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: The Curious Case of Video in Iran Histories of an Unruly Medium A Method for the Underground Why Video, Why Iran, Why Now? 1. Banned: Video Goes Underground An Unruly Medium Video Banned The Underground Rises Video Lives On 2. Underground Network: Collectivity and the Videocassette Infrastructure Iran’s Infrastructural Invisibility Blips, Blurs, and Infrastructural Pleasure Across Borders and Over Seas Layers, Material, Infrastructure 3. Video Dealers: The Work of Informal Media Distribution A Criminal Enterprise An Opportunity for Access Tastemakers, Curators, and Creative Laborers A Video Dealer for the Digital Age 4. Home Video: Pleasure, Peril, and Private Space A Private Retreat Videotape Intimacies Lessons and Lies The Home Viewing Network 5. Video Matters: Remembering the Underground Public Memories of the Underground Old Cassettes/New Cinema An Archive for the Ages Coda: Writing Video’s Unfinished History A Matter of Memory Notes Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Coda Bibliography Index "First book length study of home video in Iran during the 1980s and 1990s, and the informal distribution infrastructure that developed in reaction to the ban on all video technology"-- Provided by publisher