Global Sound Archive. Soundmap Projects and the Perspective of Future

Noémie Fargier (1)

1 EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales

Online soundmaps use this webmap technology to display field recordings in their geographic location. Most of the collections are local and collaborative, but also temporary. However, some of the soundmaps, constantly fed with contributions, gather recordings from all over the world and from the past four decades. The soundmaps can thus provide precious material for the humanities of the future. They invite us not only to listen to what the world sounded like, but also to think about the making of archives.In this respect, I will question their potential use throughout time. I will mainly focus on Aporee, the oldest and largest global soundmap using the Google Earth service, which appears as a case study. I will discuss the selection, the conservation, and representativeness of the sound archive that it is constructing. I will also examine the soundmapping itself, looking into its audio-visual framework and questioning its representation of space.

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Noémie Fargier. Global Sound Archive. Soundmap Projects and the Perspective of Future. IASH. Humanities of the Future: Perspectives from the Past and Present, 21, pp.83-97, 2020, 978-0-9532713-1-3. ⟨hal-03194051⟩