Last week we went to the British Sound Archives. Going through the history of sound recording devices and different ways of storing them using different ways and materials to make them and some interesting curios like audio tapes made of wire (used in the USA). An insight into work and issues that archive workers encounter was fascinating and made me think of the importance of preserving history, and how difficult it is at the time when everything changes so fast that what is the state-of-the-art today will most likely become an obsolete very soon.
We also discussed how incredibly bizarre and startling the sound inventions such as graphophones must have been to people who were experiencing it hundred years ago. It made me think of the times, when creators were inventing ways for everyone else to follow, building new machines and going the routes no one ever walked before. My personal experience now is that we already have so much of different technologies that it is really hard to come up with something groundbreaking. Even while creating, the number of possibilities often paralyses me. I am sure that creativity isnt “finished” and that humanity wont stop just now, but i have a feeling it’ll expand digitaly and vitualy rather than in analogue world.
Are people these days can still surprised and amazed by new and upcoming technologies? Is there something we can not even imagine that will reveal itself during our lifetimes? Nourishing and protecting the pest has a big role in it, I believe. Old-world ways will always reflect in the new world, in one way or another. In the movie “The Last Angel of History” the trajectories of three black musicians and visionaries : Su-Ra Lee Scratch Perry and George Clinton are intersecting at the moment they never met and did not know each others work. I can see the fenomenon of entrainment again, although this time it appears outside of the human body – on a methaphysical and spiritual level. More about the concept of entrainment in my previous post: https://prawncoctail.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/10/27/entrainment/
NOTES TAKEN AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Phonoaurograoh -T.Edison
1882-Graphopjone – wax cylinder used for replaying the sound, quality was much better than gramophones (produced in Peckham )
1929- instantaneous discs – used I.e. recorded messages from war times
1935- magnetic recording – audio tape (developed in Germany)
1.acetate
2.polyester
1948 – micro groove disc (styler??/stylo )
Dub (aluminium) plates are not meant to be distributed as they get damaged, the top layer of (cellulose nitrate or gelatine (cheaper)laquer??) comes off and the information is lost
◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦
Tape modern
Scientific oven
Digital- measuring/reproducing the sound wave (rather than drawing/embedding it in analog methods)
Archiving audio data never ends, it’s about constantly finding new formats of storing it that will be possible to replay
Project “True echos”
Setrac mekian- bootlegger from Armenia
Electric tonalities – that’s how first electronic music used to be called (Forbidden planet)
◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ RECOMMENDED BOOKS:
“Retromania” – book
“The polictical economy of music”