University of Huddersfield

Graduate Student, Music, Humanities and Media

AHRC research

Thesis Title: An archaeology of the voice: the location of oral history within the environment as augmented reality

About

‘The Deep Dark Secret of oral history is that nobody spends much time listening to or watching recorded and collected interview documents. There has simply been little serious interest in the primary audio or video interviews that literally define the field and that the method is organized to produce’ Michael Frisch, 2008.

The above observation galvanised my enduring interest in the tension between orality and literacy, and ultimately propelled me to my present position. I am researching ways in which new media can help oral historians redress the shocking imbalance between audio and text, in a bid to let the audio out of the closet.

Investigators and experimenters that currently excite me: Walter Ong, Philip Barnard, Juliana Hodkinson, Bruno Latour, Henri Lefebvre, Miranda July, Michael Frisch, Steven High, Toby Butler, Janet Cardiff, Graeme Miller, Murray-Schafer, Phill Harding, Dali... 

I am looking into the ways in which contemporary musical composition and sonic art techniques might be meaningfully deployed within the audio-world of oral history.

The thesis builds upon my MA dissertation: "Identities of place and community: an audio walk of Holbeck, Leeds". 

Part of the work involves experimenting with augmented reality layers in order to make located oral testimony accessible via GPS enabled mobile devices. The research explores a sense of place based on an extensive series of interviews being carried out in the Holbeck neighbourhood.