viz.

The Edison-Bell picturegram from 1927 (in Sound Recordings). The toy illustrates the convergence of sound and image.

As the budding audio recording industry was creating use value by advertising the phonograph alongside writing machines, pens, pencils, and cameras, another convergence was happening as well. The motion picture industry, which developed concurrently with the audio recording industry, sought to synch up the sights and sounds of the body. Talking, singing, dancing, fighting, and falling had been standard in the motion picture industry since it began, but these bodily acts happened silently on screen. It was only a matter of time before the body would be audible on screen.

Illustration of Edison's original phonograph from Scientific American in 1877.

Between the visual origins of the phonograph and a robust consumer market centered on record labels, there was a period of time during which the invention had to establish its own utility. According to Brian Massumi in Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, utility always comes after the act of invention:

The link between uselessness and invention even applies to instrumental reason: a true invention is an object that precedes its utility. An invention is something for which a use must be created. Once the utility is produced, it rapidly self-converts into a need. This is the direction of flow of the history of technology (of which bodies, things, and objects are the first artifacts): backward. (96)

Grooves from the original phonograph recording, reproduced in Scientific American in 1877.

Most of us do not process audio recordings in a vacuum. There is a visual dimension to our aural world. Although, sadly, liner notes are impoverished in the digital realm (although not absolutely or irrevocably so), we still have a world of visual information when navigating sound in digital spaces. Whether digital or analog, sights and sounds coevolve. This may sound overly simplistic, but just under the surface, things get complex. When you drill down into the relationship between audio recording and its associated visual media, a complex ecosystem of delivery technologies, mechanical inventions, distribution channels, and marketing efforts emerges. We might begin to explore this complexity by looking at some artifacts. Fortunately, the recording industry is an artifact-generating machine.

Image Credit: Screenshot of a drawing by Katie Butler for my E314J class

Last year at about this time, Emily Bloom offered a thoughtful post in which she cautioned against privileging visual literacy at the expense of what she called “auditory literacy,” a crucial component of both analyzing and creating new media productions in the classroom. After assigning a narrated slideshow project this semester, with decidedly mixed aural results: I consider myself schooled.

The latest Currents CFP says that "Currents invites—along with traditional academic submissions—audio essays, podcasts, oral histories, interviews, and other audio recorded genres, as well as webpages, videos, animations, slide presentations, etc.,that address sound-related issues." What does it mean to have a piece that theoretically and practically advances ideas about sound, retaining a focus on the auditory sense, while incorporating video or imagery? Some pieces to inspire you follow after the break. The deadline for the CFP is January 10, 2011.