Patryk Wasiak

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Patryk Wasiak is an Associate Professor at the Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He holds MA titles in sociology and art history and a PhD in Cultural Studies. Wasiak is a former fellow of the Volkswagen Foundation, the Center for Contemporary History Potsdam, the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. His research interests include the cultural history of the Cold War, the history of home technologies, and the history of computing. Currently he works on the history of industrial design and communist ideology in state-socialist Poland, a project supported with a research grant from the National Science Centre of Poland. Wasiak has published articles in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing , the International Journal of Communication, and History and Technology.

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  • The Production of High Fidelity Audio Electronics and the Politics of Technological and Social Modernization in Late State Socialist Poland (2024) author(s): Patryk Wasiak published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
    This paper investigates the development of the production of High Fidelity (Hi-Fi), audios and the emergence of an accompanying audiophile culture in late state socialist Poland of the 1970s. My case study offers a discussion on the re-negotiating of the cultural values of a specifically marketed technology that was used as a status symbol in affluent market economy countries. In state-socialist Poland, a host of social actors appropriated Hi-Fi audios technologies and audiophile culture to be part of a nationwide project of technological and social modernization. I investigate how in this specific historical setting the mass-scale development and the production of Hi-Fi audios emerged, and how this was embedded into the government policy of building “consumer socialism.” This development also corresponded with a state-sponsored program of technological modernization, in which the electronics industry was identified as a flagship sector that received substantial government investment. I also discuss the emergence of a local audiophile culture, which was redefined by intermediary actors, from being a Western elitist “consumption microculture” into an accessible form of cultural uplift for working-class youth.
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