Sound piece by Gilles Aubry and Robert Millis (2017, 45′) commissioned by documenta14 for the “Every Time A Ear di Soun” radio program.

Based on historical accounts by recording pioneers such as Theobald Noble and Fred Gaisberg—who made the earliest sound recordings in India and other parts of the world c. 1902—The Gramophone Effect is a sound essay on recording and listening. Coined by Jacques Derrida and described as the tension between the desire for memory and the impossibility of preserving living voices, “the gramophone effect” refers here both to the estranging presence of recorded voices and the potential of the unheard.

To the overt exoticism of Nobles’s descriptions, the artists oppose other sources including translations of traditional Bengali songs, an essay by sound artist Farah Mulla, excerpts of a conversation with Khasi folk singer Kerios Wahlang, as well as a speculative new voice adapted from the Lakshmi Tantra. Developed in collaboration with Indian artists during a residency in early 2016, the piece also contains early Indian shellac records, field recordings from the Indian-Bangladeshi border area, sounds from instrument makers and musicians in Bengaluru and Kolkata, as well as improvisations by Aubry and Millis with an acoustic gramophone.

Participants : Gitanjali Dang, Usha Deshpande, Renee Lulam, Farah Mulla, Travelling Archive (Moushumi Bhowmik and Sukanta Majumdar)

Further analysis of the piece can be read here.