{"556101":{"#nid":"556101","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Rest in Peace, VCR","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIan Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication wrote\u0026nbsp;\u201cRest in Peace VCR\u201d for\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EThe Atlantic\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EExcerpt:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe video store, as it is nostalgically remembered, looks like a record shop, or a hookah parlor. Staffed by scruffy burners or neo-hippies who \u201creally know their stuff,\u201d splayed with shelves at all angles, plastered in posters, encrusted with knick-knacks.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESome such stores might have existed, but the earliest video stores were nothing like them. They were modernist celebrations of minimalism and order. Light grey walls and dark grey carpets, austere racks displaying evenly-spaced, singular copies of video boxes. They were quiet and circumspect. Some were tacked on to television equipment repair facilities; others freely stood behind nondescript fa\u00e7ades. Indulgences to style were limited: a neon accent, or an OCR-inspired logotype. Before video was culture, it was technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat kind of technology? One that cut wormholes through space-time. Called \u201ctime shifting,\u201d the videocassette and the VCR made it possible to record a program broadcast at a particular time and to watch it later. Or, to rent or buy a videocassette copy of a film and to watch it from the comfort of home after it had left the theater. It did this for two decades, from 1975 to 1995, and then the DVD continued its legacy, in part, for a decade more.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe full article can be read \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2016\/07\/vrc-is-dead\/492992\/\u0022\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"32716","created_gmt":"2016-07-27 10:19:17","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 02:28:16","author":"Hayden Russell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","publication":"JS Coon Building","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2016\/07\/vrc-is-dead\/492992\/","dateline":{"date":"2016-07-26T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-07-26T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"}],"categories":[{"id":"143","name":"Digital Media and Entertainment"}],"keywords":[{"id":"3663","name":"Ian Bogost"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}