Pop'lar is a project based on a private collection of portuguese popular music tapes. Throughout a wide range of objects it is shown the impact and potential of tape recording in Portugal and how it reflects on the country's history. The collected material was also analyzed through the design discipline, by creating an inventory of all the graphic variables used in the tape covers. Therefore, the collection is not only cataloged by time period but also through represented motif, capture tecnique, colors, layout and typographical combinations. This different perspective for organizing music artifacts results in unexpected connections between the analyzed objects, emerging endless possible connections between the various musical genres and artists.
The whole investigation can be consulted in the book Lado A: O Popular, A Cassete, A Colecção. Lado B: A Análise, O Arquivo, O Livro, while the collection that motivated the study can be seen fully, through the different graphic variables, at the online archive poplar.pt.
You can see all the tape collection
and some results of the investigation
at the online archive poplar.pt
