Difference between revisions of "History of fieldwork technology"
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| − | + | * Field notes result from a kind of “mental recording”, which is transferred to words, symbols, sketches, diagrams, and musical notations on paper as quickly as is practical. | |
| − | + | ** This "low tech" solution remains central to ethnographic fieldwork, not only because it is inexpensive, but also due to its flexibility and its automatic incorporation of the fieldworker's own interpretive competence, intelligent information reduction. For example, in transcribing an interview or melody we think about what's really important. | |
| − | + | ** Thus the irony: less information is often more information. | |
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| − | + | * Nevertheless, the ''scientific' study of culture was completely transformed by the advent of recording technology | |
| + | * The “scientific” study of music was advanced by the technology enabling recorded sound. | ||
| + | * Similarly mechanical recordings of sound and image advanced the study of culture generally in related fields. | ||
| + | * One of the founding events of ethnomusicology was Edison’s development of the phonograph in 1877 (recorded and played back from cylinders) followed by Emile Berliner’s invention of the gramophone in 1887, with an antecedent in Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s record-only phonautograph invented in 1857 (http://www.firstsounds.org/). | ||
| + | * Still image technology was developed by Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre in the 1820s and 1830s | ||
| + | * Nascent motion picture technology emerged with the Lumiere brothers, whose first screening was in 1895) | ||
| + | What is recording technology? In recording we transform (transduce) physical waves (sound and light) emanating from the field then preserve them in physical media for longer-term storage. The past becomes imprinted on the future. Ironically it may be the low tech (Sumerian clay tablets, LPs) which last longer (than floppy discs, or CDs...) | ||
| − | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording_and_reproduction | + | Over time recording technology has rapidly developed in three often converging directions: |
| − | + | ||
| − | + | * Audio recording. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording_and_reproduction Sound recording technologies] | |
| − | + | * Still photography. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography History of photography] | |
| + | * Moving photography. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_film History of film] | ||
Latest revision as of 09:50, 5 March 2012
- Field notes result from a kind of “mental recording”, which is transferred to words, symbols, sketches, diagrams, and musical notations on paper as quickly as is practical.
- This "low tech" solution remains central to ethnographic fieldwork, not only because it is inexpensive, but also due to its flexibility and its automatic incorporation of the fieldworker's own interpretive competence, intelligent information reduction. For example, in transcribing an interview or melody we think about what's really important.
- Thus the irony: less information is often more information.
- Nevertheless, the scientific' study of culture was completely transformed by the advent of recording technology
- The “scientific” study of music was advanced by the technology enabling recorded sound.
- Similarly mechanical recordings of sound and image advanced the study of culture generally in related fields.
- One of the founding events of ethnomusicology was Edison’s development of the phonograph in 1877 (recorded and played back from cylinders) followed by Emile Berliner’s invention of the gramophone in 1887, with an antecedent in Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s record-only phonautograph invented in 1857 (http://www.firstsounds.org/).
- Still image technology was developed by Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre in the 1820s and 1830s
- Nascent motion picture technology emerged with the Lumiere brothers, whose first screening was in 1895)
What is recording technology? In recording we transform (transduce) physical waves (sound and light) emanating from the field then preserve them in physical media for longer-term storage. The past becomes imprinted on the future. Ironically it may be the low tech (Sumerian clay tablets, LPs) which last longer (than floppy discs, or CDs...)
Over time recording technology has rapidly developed in three often converging directions:
- Audio recording. Sound recording technologies
- Still photography. History of photography
- Moving photography. History of film
