Adults’ early fascination with functional background media shaped their later artistic nostalgia

Evidence

‘With hindsight,’ Brooks says, ‘the fact that these things are so evocative of the past, accentuates and crystallises my interest in them; but actually, I’ve always been interested in things ‘in the background’ – for me, that’s where the really interesting stuff has always been. As a kid, I was equally fascinated by library music used on TV (or TV themes) as I was about pop music; things that we weren’t supposed to take any real notice of. I used to look out for TV test transmissions, for example, and of course Public Information Films. Open University broadcasts held the same fascination; these broadcasts weren’t targeted at an eight-year-old child, but I was drawn towards them nonetheless. … There was something very elegant about them. Again, these things were presented as ‘functional’, in their own way. So, the fascination was always there. It’s just stayed with me.’ — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 326

Categorization

• XREF: Children drawn to broadcast text they weren’t meant for prefigures nostalgic hauntology; resonates with being an uncanny medium spoken through (ch6). — connects to: The public information film became a talisman of 1970s paternalism now revived by YouTube — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 322; Musicians can channel childhood turbulence into indie art indelibly — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 324
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what makes functional/background media — test cards, logos, library music — a richer site of child fascination than intended pop content?