Field Recording

The history of human sound reproduction can be traced to the late nineteenth century, with Edison’s invention and widespread adoption of the phonograph. In 1898, the young Ludwig Koch used his father’s wax cylinder phonograph to record the song of a white-rumped shama, becoming one of the earliest pioneers of outdoor recording. As the twentieth century progressed, recording subjects expanded to broader human activities, moving from concert halls into the field; many ethnomusicologists documented musical traditions and languages, work inseparable from that of researchers and archivists. However, these notions that recording could achieve objectivity were eventually replaced by a new understanding emphasizing the subjectivity of recording — focused on creating and transmitting auditory experiences as they unfold in time. As this practice gained wider recognition, a publishing wave swept through artists around the world who explored environmental and sonic phenomena, investigating the relationship between listening experience and the self. It was only in the past twenty-odd years that field recording began to develop substantial and diverse scholarship.

(Spring 2016 Contemporary Night “Archive Fever” lecture series; moderator: curator and music culture researcher Lo Yueh-chuan; speaker: artist Yannick Dauby)

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