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Inside the, now closed, Network Video store in Kenmore, Brisbane, Australia - between the comedy and drama aisles.
Video rental stores occupy a unique place in history. They provided entertainment in a tangible physical form, between the era of ephemeral projection or broadcast and the era of digital downloads. The stores began in the 1980's, with the arrival of the VHS (and briefly Betamax) video tapes - the first time consumers can purchase or rent videos and movies. Then came DVD and later Blu-ray discs. But with the arrival of digital downloads saw the demise of the video rental stores; and the experience of browsing the aisles to choose that perfect title to spend the evening with: comedy or drama, oh it is so hard to choose!
This video store had been open for 25 years and closed in May 2014.
There are no kangaroos in Austria. We're talking about Australia, the world's smallest continent. That being cleared up, let's dive right in! Australia is a sovereign state under the Commonwealth of Nations, which is in turn overseen by Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth. The continent was first sighted and charted by the Dutch in 1606. Captain James Cook of Britain came along in the next century to claim it for Britain and name it "New South Wales." Shortly thereafter it was declared to be a penal colony full of nothing but criminals and convicts, giving it the crap reputation you may have heard at your last cocktail party. This rumor ignores 40,000 years of pre-European human history, especially the Aboriginal concept of Dreamtime, an interesting explanation of physical and spiritual reality. The two biggest cities in Australia are Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney is more for business, Melbourne for arts. But that's painting in very broad strokes. Take a whirl around the panoramas to see for yourself! Text by Steve Smith.