Disco Time(and)Machines. Riascoltare la Disco music

Abstract

To further elaborate the widespread criticisms concerning the supposedly “materialistic” and “technocentric” essence of Disco, this essay aims at reconsidering Discomusic from a “crono-technological” perspective rather than a social-technological one. Theoretical tools borrowed from Wolfgang Ernst’s understanding of media-archaeology will be applied to two different cases (vinyl records manipulation techniques and digital sampling in Nu Disco), highlighting differences and similarities in the use of analog and digital media for sound recording. In each case I will discuss how the dee-jay and the producer differently “mediate” between recorded music and the listening audience, within a live or a studio context, in order to demonstrate in which ways the medium itself (as a techno-cultural artifact) “performs” by stressing its material and temporal features. The purpose of the essay is to investigate the effective role of media technologies in shaping our entertaining experience as Discomusic listeners.