6 April 2008
I recently found out about these incredible mixtape stickers while running a sticker contest on flickr. I hadn’t chosen the mixtape sticker as the winner, but that should not take away from the power of the mixtape sticker as a medium of expression. The mixtape sticker movement incites people to come up with literary gems and apply this at the top of their sticker as a form of sidewalk poetry. Of course, I’m 35, so I find mixtapes to be especially nostalgic since I lived through the golden age of mix tapes. Today, I think you would be hard pressed to find a tape deck.
The mixtape is one of those lost arts that we discarded when we traded in our analog cassettes for the digital high life. They acted as personal bookmarks, specific to maker, and retold through the joys of audio recording.
In an attempt to capture the DIY pastime of mixtapes, the Mixtape Sticker offers a simple and accessible approach to street art. As the cassette label is left blank, it allows each sticker to be fully customized by the user, a collaboration anyone can participate in and appreciate.
The Mixtape came to light in 2006 as a project for PROCESS, an art collective which focuses it’s attention on how artists get from point A to B, by highlighting their progression along the way, when working toward a final piece.
In addition to the Mixtape Sticker itself, PROCESS plans to publish a printed edition to catalogue the best submissions collected for this project. To get your own mixtape stickers, or for more information about this and other PROCESS projects, please visit: www.thisisprocess.com
- Scott Albrecht
