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Agustina Checa / Music

Graduate Student Researcher
February 2021 – January 2023

Project: Magnetismo Sónico
NML Awards: The New Media Lab Digital Dissertation Award (March 2022), The Joshua Brown Visual Culture Award (June 2021)

Agustina Checa

Agustina Checa (she/her/ella) is a doctoral candidate in the Ethnomusicology program at the Graduate Center. Her dissertation examines value, material culture, independent music, and alternative economies through an ethnographic study of cassette labels in Argentina. She is the creator and director of Magnetismo Sónico, a public archive that showcases the work of cassette labels in Latin America and aims to foster connections between tape makers and enthusiasts. As a complement to her dissertation, Magnetismo prompts new avenues to explore the generative interactions between analog and digital media and the transformative potentials of public-facing scholarship.

For almost a decade, Agustina has contributed to various outlets of indie music and culture in Latin America, such as Indiehoy, and has worked with and alongside independent bands and record labels in the US and Argentina. She has taught in Brooklyn College’s music department working towards engaging, responsive, anti-racist classrooms where students feel empowered in their learning, and worked as a Carnegie Educational Technologist Fellow at the Graduate Center for a year. Agustina is currently a fellow at the Graduate Center’s Teaching and Learning Center.

Bio in Spanish: http://magnetismosonico.org/about