Exposition

A Conversation on Discarded Recordings (2024)

Heikki Wilenius, Ernst Karel, Jonathan LARCHER
open exposition

About this exposition

What can be considered as a discarded recording in an ethnographic inquiry? Do the instabilities and technical errors show that technology is really part of the encounter of ethnographic situations? Furthermore, is there a limit beyond which a sound that is too degraded can no longer be restored but simply described in writing, the preferred medium of the human sciences in general and anthropology in particular? These three ideas were at the center of an online conversation with Ernst Karel, starting with the film Expedition Content (2020) made with Veronika Kusumaryati from the sound archives of the Harvard-Peabody expedition (1961) in Dutch New Guinea. The many errors and failures that punctuate Rockefeller's recordings – we also listened to some recordings that did not appear in Expedition Content – form a fertile ground for thinking about the tactics and listening that can make examining ethnographic rubbish a heuristic, both for the history of the anthropological discipline and for the history of the place where it was recorded.
typeresearch exposition
date10/12/2022
published21/03/2024
last modified21/03/2024
statuspublished
share statusprivate
copyrightErnst Karel, Jonathan Larcher & Heikki Wilenius
licenseCC BY
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1857111/1857112
published inJournal of Sonic Studies
portal issue25. Issue 25


Simple Media

id name copyright license
1857343 Image -- Too much wind XX archive All rights reserved
1857526 TRK1-16 B All rights reserved
1857545 silence_maison_STE-002 B All rights reserved
1857607 silence_maison_STE-002_plus30dB B and A All rights reserved
1857634 dynasty_excerpt C All rights reserved
1857809 Expedition Content - screenshot B All rights reserved
1869507 a space of blank tape Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati All rights reserved
1869579 ExpeditionContent_source-clip_camera-noise Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati All rights reserved
1869583 Kerala-temple-broadcast_1 Ernst Karel CC BY-NC-ND
1869586 ExpeditionContent_excerpt_photography-lesson Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati All rights reserved
2660932 JSS Banner JSS All rights reserved
2660993 KAREL_LARCHER_WILENIUS__conversation_visual_introIMG_20230712_121710 Wilenius All rights reserved
2661091 KAREL_LARCHER_WILENIUS__Useful at the moment__operator_rubbish_sound Wilenius All rights reserved
2661104 KAREL_LARCHER_WILENIUS__Voices_of_the_rainforest Wilenius All rights reserved
2661108 KAREL_LARCHER_WILENIUS__2 - Zawawa Wilenius All rights reserved

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