'Living in a Material World', Contemplating the immaterial One: Musings on What Sounds can Actually Tell Us, or Not

Abstract

The abundancy of audio-visual sources surrounding us calls for well-argumented criteria of what to collect, and even more urgent: what to archive, what to study, and why? There are different methods in vogue in (e)valuating the cultural heritage of an object. This is also the case when we discuss specific types of musical heritage such as audio-visual recordings. Frequently used is the Australian Significance 2.0 method which scrutinizes historical value in addition to scientific, aesthetical and/or social values. In regard to audio-visual sources, the last two of these categories are not always easy to grasp. The „cultural biography“ of any particular relevant artifact is of the essence here. Who was the „owner“, who do we hear performing, from which performative tradition, for what reason was the source produced and disseminated, etc.? With these questions, we leave the material realm of the artefacts, and enter their immaterial world. This domain extends beyond the contours of emotional and/or social content; yet by posing such questions, we must remain aware of the fact that we may drift away from the original intentions of any specific reproduction technique, consequently incorporating them as part of our strategy for preservation and sourcing knowledge. In this contribution, basic concepts taken from the Viennese Telling Sounds project will be problematized and the fluidity between those concepts will be addressed, including those of materiality and canonisation, as well as the so-called „generational lost“ between primary recorded source and its reproduction(s).