Videotape

This is the story of the rise and fall and global cultural impact of the VHS tape.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Over the span of a single decade, VHS technology changed the relationship between privacy and entertainment, pried open the closed societies behind the Iron Curtain, and then sank back into oblivion.
Its meteoric rise and fall encapsulated the dynamics of the ‘80s and foreshadowed the seismic cultural shifts to come after the Cold War.

In the West, its advent deepened the trends of the age: individualism, consumerism, the fragmentation of society, and the consolidation of corporate power in the entertainment industry and its victory over the regulatory powers of the state. In the East, it encouraged new forms of socialization and economic
exchanges, while announcing the gradual crumbling of government control over the imagination of the people.

By the mid-1990s, the VHS format was displaced by the DVD. The DVD would eventually give way to streaming. Yet the cultural legacy of the videotape continues to inform our relationship to technology, privacy, and to entertainment.

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International Delivery:

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Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

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