Paper short abstract:

The paper reflects on the history and current status of anthropological sound collections with an emphasis on (shifts in) technology and formats of recording, preservation and storage – from the fragile wax phonograms to the (perceived) promises of longevity and multiplicity through digitization.

Paper long abstract:

With the invention of the phonograph in the late 19th century, it became possible to record and store sound, and ethnographers engaged in anthropometric and anthropological projects around the world quickly incorporated the new technology in their measuring, documenting and recording practices. With the help of recording devices, copies of what was considered typical examples of sounds from different people could be made and stored in formats separate from the humans that produced them: the new technology made human sound copyable, preservable, collectable, storable, and mobile. As a result, large collections of sound recordings can be found in anthropological and ethnographic museums primarily in Europe and North America.

With a few exceptions, the recordings have been living long, forgotten lives in museum archives and storage facilities, partly due to the obstacles provided by the many different and often outdated recording formats the sounds are preserved in: from fragile phonograms/wax cylinders with extremely limited playback possibilities over steel wire and shellac records to cassette tapes, vinyl records and CDs reflecting changes in recording technology. Recently however there has been a growing interest internationally in reactivating the sound recordings in exhibitions as well as in preserving, disseminating, and perhaps ‘repatriating’ them through digitization.

But how to care for such neglected sound objects in museum collections? Which collection temporalities do the different recording and storing formats occasion or afford? And what new issues – practical, ethical, ontological, epistemological – of care are being brought to the fore by the perceived promises of digitization?