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Greedy Dust & 1.Spesifikasi: Reviving cassette tapes through a design perspective
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Unique design: 1.Spesifikasi is open to creating designs for tape cassettes that are more difficult to produce as they require deeper technical know-how. (Courtesy of 1.Spesifikasi) (Courtesy of 1.Spesifikasi/Courtesy of 1.Spesifikasi)
Cassette tape revivalists Delpi Suhariyanto and Arno Zarror breathe new life into a forgotten medium.
In the past few months, Arno Zarror, the man behind cassette tape-duplication initiative 1.Spesifikasi, has spent a lot of his time at the customs office in Tangerang, Banten.
1.Spesifikasi, which translates as 'one specification', chose its name to give a sense of list-like unity between its Instagram handle and captions for every post.
Arno has had to participate in a state-initiated auction to buy back the OTARI brand cassette tape-duplication machine that he bought and shipped from Japan through Zenmarket (an online shopping proxy service for shopping at Japanese auction sites).
Apparently, the machines were shipped by the seller without proper documentation.
“I ended up giving [the tape duplicators] up,” said Arno. “I think Lokananta [a state-owned records duplication company in Surakarta, Central Java] uses the same machine for its duplication services.”
Arno then spent a significant amount of time combing through a couple of major cities in Java. Following tiny leads given by enthusiasts and communities, he scoured through the remnants of the golden age of cassette tapes in Indonesia.
