The early history of tape can be and has been told in a number of ways: as a byproduct of fascism; as a serendipitous outcome of signals intelligence and the spoils of the Second World War; or as a synergistic result of American capitalism at the hands of Bing Crosby and engineer John Mullin. Instead, I consider how Fritz Pfleumer's ‘sounding paper’ – inspired by his work in cigarette manufacturing – led to a medium that brings together elements of magnetic technologies (i.e., non-inscriptive data storage) with the plastic operations of film (e.g., cutting, splicing, looping), augmented by a variety of new temporal possibilities (e.g., pause, rewind). To that end, I analyse the production and subsequent circulation of tape, tape recorders, and tape recordings in Germany during the Second World War, including many orchestral recordings by Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan. After the war, these technologies and tapes were looted from Germany, leading to the subsequent emergence of tape recording in the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union. The post-war dissemination of tape illustrates not only the geopolitics of technology, but also the ways in which the peculiar characteristics of tape fostered certain cultural and technological practices.

中文翻译：

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从前：早期磁带的肤浅历史

磁带的早期历史可以并且已经以多种方式讲述：作为法西斯主义的副产品；作为信号情报和第二次世界大战战利品的偶然结果；或者是美国资本主义在 Bing Crosby 和工程师 John Mullin 手中的协同效应。相反，我考虑了 Fritz Pfleumer 的“试探性论文”——受他在香烟制造方面的工作的启发——如何导致一种将磁性技术元素（即非铭文数据存储）与胶片的塑料操作（例如切割）结合在一起的媒介。 、拼接、循环），并增加了各种新的时间可能性（例如，暂停、倒带）。为此，我分析了二战期间德国磁带、录音机和磁带录音的生产和后续流通，包括威廉·富特文格勒和赫伯特·冯·卡拉扬的许多管弦乐唱片。战后，这些技术和磁带从德国被掠夺，导致随后在美国、英国和苏联出现了磁带录音。战后磁带的传播不仅说明了技术的地缘政治，也说明了磁带的特殊特性促进了某些文化和技术实践的方式。