AXMEDIS 2008

The AXMEDIS International Conference series aims to explore all subjects and topics related to cross-media and digital-media content production, processing, management, standards, representation, sharing, protection and rights management, to address the latest developments and future trends of the technologies and their applications, impacts and exploitation. The AXMEDIS events offer venues for exchanging concepts, requirements, prototypes, research ideas, and findings which could contribute to academic research and also benefit business and industrial communities. In the Internet as well as in the digital era, cross-media production and distribution represent key developments and innovations that are fostered by emergent technologies to ensure better value for money while optimising productivity and market coverage

An Omnivorous Ear: The Creative Practice of Field Recording

“An Omnivorous Ear - The Creative Practice of Field Recording” offers new insights into the history of recording outside of the studio in North America, challenging the various working definitions of field recording in music studies, anthropology, and communications. I examine recording methodologies through the late 19th and 20th centuries as a documentary technique, a tool for composition, and an art object in the United States of America and Canada from the late 19th century to the present day. Within this geographical region, I focus on the invention of acoustic recording, the proliferation of the technology amongst the public, folkloric recording supported by governmental and academic institutions, as well a experimental artistic practices. Throughout the dissertation, I argue that ‘the field’ is a social construction mediated by the recordist and recorder. Chapter 2 focuses on how cultures translate collective and phenomenological experiences into histories through sound media. These include orality, writing, the inscription of sound waves onto media, acoustic recording, and radio as forms of sound media that each embodies distinct forms of social and political knowledge. Chapter 3 details the development of recording machines and their effect on listening practices. Chapter 4 locates practitioners of phonography within the development of portable recording equipment on the one hand and the ‘hi-fi’ cultural movement in North America on the other. Practitioners included folklorists Alan Lomax from the Library of Congress, Moses Asch of Folkways Records, and Harry Smith, creator of the Anthology of American Folk Music; Stefan Kudelski, creator of the NAGRA recorder; and media maker Tony Schwartz, among the first to create the sound documentary by editing field recordings. Chapter 5 explores the relationship between sound, music and the environment within the paradigm of the soundscape as theorized by the World Soundscape Project (WSP). I critique the research and compositional practices developed by WSP members, and the influence it has on ecomusicology and sound art. Chapter 6 outlines sonic ethnography, a methodology that borrows from the best practices of many of the individuals mentioned throughout the dissertation, and employs new compositional techniques to condense and manipulate social, political and historical narratives through sonic works. The dissertation concludes by arguing that field recording, can be used to critique aesthetic and cultural dilemmas of representation.Cambridge Overseas Trus

Music - Media - History

Music and sound shape the emotional content of audio-visual media and carry different meanings. This volume considers audio-visual material as a primary source for historiography. By analyzing how the same sounds are used in different media contexts at different times, the contributors intend to challenge the linear perspective of (music) history based on canonic authority. The book discusses AV-Documents (analysis in context), methodological questions (implications for research, education, and popularization of knowledge), archives of cultural memory (from the perspective of Cultural Studies) as well as digitalization and its consequences (organization of knowledge)

Music - Media - History: Re-Thinking Musicology in an Age of Digital Media

Music and sound shape the emotional content of audio-visual media and carry different meanings. This volume considers audio-visual material as a primary source for historiography. By analyzing how the same sounds are used in different media contexts at different times, the contributors intend to challenge the linear perspective of (music) history based on canonic authority. The book discusses AV-Documents (analysis in context), methodological questions (implications for research, education, and popularization of knowledge), archives of cultural memory (from the perspective of Cultural Studies) as well as digitalization and its consequences (organization of knowledge)

British Independent Record Labels, Memory and Mediation

PhD ThesisThis thesis examines the changing relationship between the material culture of music (in the form of recorded music objects) and memory (as it is sedimented in, and mediated by, the work of a selection of British independent record labels). The principal aim of this work is to explore the significant but often-overlooked material paradigm of recorded music, from Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877 up until the early twenty-first century, increasingly characterised by the digital archiving, collecting and consumption of music. Drawing from a broad range of cultural theorists (including Benjamin, Straw, Sterne, Kittler, Gitelman and Huyssen), this research seeks to situate recorded sound within broader discourses on memory and mediation, technology and cultural transmission. The thesis is structured around the analyses of several British independent record labels from the recent past and the present: Sarah Records (1987- 1995), Ghost Box Records (2004-) and reissue record labels, including Finders Keepers (2004-). By focusing on specific record labels and situated configurations of the material culture of music, both physical and digital, I identify and map various aspects of the music object and clarify the particular socio-technological contexts within which such configurations arise.Whittaker Scholarshi

Music - Media - History

Music and sound shape the emotional content of audio-visual media and carry different meanings. This volume considers audio-visual material as a primary source for historiography. By analyzing how the same sounds are used in different media contexts at different times, the contributors intend to challenge the linear perspective of (music) history based on canonic authority. The book discusses AV-Documents (analysis in context), methodological questions (implications for research, education, and popularization of knowledge), archives of cultural memory (from the perspective of Cultural Studies) as well as digitalization and its consequences (organization of knowledge)

From Grain to Pixel

"In From Grain to Pixel , Giovanna Fossati analyzes the transition from analog to digital film and its profound effects on filmmaking and film archiving. Reflecting on the theoretical conceptualization of the medium itself, Fossati poses significant questions about the status of physical film and the practice of its archival preservation, restoration and presentation. From Grain to Pixel attempts to bridge the fields of film archiving and academic research by addressing the discourse on film's ontology and analyzing how different interpretations of what film is affect the role and practices of film archives. Ultimately, Fossati proposes a novel theorization of film archival practice as the starting point for a renewed dialogue between film scholars and film archivists. Almost a decade after its first publication, this updated edition covers the latest developments in the field. Besides a new general introduction, a new conclusion and extensive updates to each chapter, a novel theoretical framework and a new case study have been added. Giovanna Fossati is chief curator at EYE Filmmuseum and professor of film heritage and digital film culture at the University of Amsterdam.

Doing Experimental Media Archaeology

The volume aims at taking the materiality of past media devices seriously and explores the heuristic possibilities of an experimental study of these devices. It offers a sophisticated reflection on the epistemological and heuristic potential of hands-on media historical research

Gaywaves: Transcending Boundaries - the Rise and Demise of Britain's First Gay Radio Program

At the beginning of 1982 an array of conflicting forces were working to shape the landscape of Europe's metropolitan radio services, and to alternatively control, commodify or liberate its gay communities. This paper examines the drivers, which inspired Gaywaves, a nascent weekly gay community radio programme broadcasting to an inner London audience on pirate station Our Radio from May 1982 until March 1983