Found in Translation Recording, Storing and Writing of Sounds

This chapter deals with a notion that is prevalent in sound studies, namely, of sound as “lost.” It involves the suggestion that sound is underappreciated or even repressed, and needs to be “found,” and thus recovered, reconstructed and re-evaluated in scholarly analysis. This discourse implies that sound is a phenomenon that is ephemeral, lacking or incomplete, as a state of affairs that prompts a search for its traces, inscriptions or other means to reveal sonic and auditory phenomena. By implication, the possibility of being found heralds sound as rich, fascinating and compelling. This narrative is sometimes connected to essentialist definitions of sound (and hearing) pitted in opposition to image (and seeing). These oppositions, which Jonathan Sterne (2003: 15) dubs the “audio-visual litany,” tend to reinforce universalist and crude simplifications of sound in terms of temporality, immersion, interiority and affect.