Jukebox in the passage between shopping area de Amsterdamse Poort and the Anton de Komplein. Users can choose from different music genres that are played in the neighboring shops.
The juke-box once was the beating heart of neon-lit cafes where young people in leather jackets and petticoats met to drink coca-cola and eat French fries. You put in a coin and by pressing one of the chunky buttons chose a number from the playing list made up of typed or handwritten labels. The sound usually wasn’t that great, the added value came from the luxurious and colourful exterior of the sumptuously shaped glass body. The music was the backdrop to social life. Whoever had money determined what was played, you critically compared one another’s preferences, which after all represented a choice of lifestyle. This was before the days of iPods and walkmans, you listened together. James Beckett’s jukebox is a reference to listening to music together in public. With his juke-box he presents a quilt of musical settings that can be found in the various shops in the Amsterdamse Poort shopping area.. One departure from the traditional juke-box is that this one is free. Every passer-by can choose what he or she wants to play. Another difference with the juke-box of yesteryear is that this one remains contemporary because the music comes from shops which naturally keep their music up-to- date, tailored to the season, public and time of the day. This is a juke-box of the present day, which gives the passer-by a glimpse – or rather an opportunity to listen – in to the Bijlmer.
James Beckett
1977, Harare, ZW. Lives and works in Amsterdam, NL
Before coming to the Netherlands, James Beckett studied at Technikon Natal, a university of technology and design in Durban, South Africa. He retained an interest in science and technology and their history. He was fascinated by William Henry Perkin, for instance, the first chemist to produce a synthetic dye. Beckett sees the tragicomedy that may accompany inventions; his website recalls drily that the patent for the synthesis was filed by the German chemical company BASF, which beat Perkin by one day. Sound and music are also very important to Beckett, who was once the bass player in a noise band. Sound has moved to the centre of his work, with projects ranging from radio mockumentaries to museum installations on the cultural and physiological effects of noise.
