Alternative Cultural Practices in Socialist Romania during the 1980s: Developments, Effects and Limits

Collaboration between the Studio for Post-Conceptual Art Practices/Prof. Marina Grzinic and mentor doctoral candidate in philosophy Alexandra Tatar, who is leading the seminar in the summer semester 2023: The Teleported Subject in Post-Socialist Romania - Rethinking the Possibility of Eastern European Subjects at the Intersection of (Global) Media and Regional History.

Alexandra Bardam will speak about the global advances in information technology, telecommunications, and transportation that played an important role in shaping social change under late socialism in Romania, despite the totalitarian nature of the Ceausescu regime. The political, economic, and cultural development of the video recorder (VCR) will be traced using a narrative approach to discuss the development of alternative cultural practices as well as the limits of the "subversive" use of transnational media.

Alexandra Bardan is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Bucharest, where she teaches courses in editorial design, photojournalism, digital image production and desktop publishing. Her research interests include visual communication, post-communist nostalgia, social history, and everyday life in communist Romania. She is currently working on a book that explores the less visible patterns of economic and social change embedded in the Romanian alternative media market during late socialism.