Week 8 – Site Visit to the British Library Sound Archives

Yesterday’s talk at the British Library taught me a lot about the history of sound, the evolution of recorders and speakers, and how sound carriers have changed. My favourite part was the section on how to restore old tapes and recover audio. After the lecture, I listened to several audios on the equipment outside in the exhibition hall. 

The sounds all belonged to different eras and were memories of the times. In fact, sound is also a form of artifact, compared to the tangible artifacts (sculptures, ceramics, bronzes), sound also tells a story and records history. There is a Chinese documentary called Masters In The Forbidden City, which documents the process of restoration of top Chinese cultural relics in the Forbidden City by masters in different fields. If I had the chance, I would like to document the process of restoring sound in a documentary format.