Sonic Imaginaries of Africa in German Cinema (1930-2000)

The Austrian Science Fund FWF is funding the research project “Sonic Imaginaries of Africa in German Cinema (1930-2000)” at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz from 23.09.2024-22.09.2028. Cooperation partners are the Lautarchiv of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

The project will make a contribution to the emergence and development of the sounds of cinematic Africa. Since the early days of cinematography, Africa has been an important production site for commercial films from the global North. Since music or sound as a sensual dimension of the everyday is an elementary component of discourses and ideas about the African continent, the project aims to analyze cinematic sound historically and structurally.

What is completely new in this project is the inclusion of anthropological material in the analysis of film music, which is based on empirical archive work.

From 13 January 2025 to May 2025, in the visitors’ room of the Lautarchiv, Dr. Maria Fuchs will be working for the first time on a previously unexplored collection of historical written documents that could be relevant to her project. The above document shows an excerpt from the article “Das ‘tönende Museum’, Westfälische Zeitung, Bielefeld, No. 88, April 15, 1932 – a first thematically relevant find that gives an idea of the archive’s potential for the use of sound film at this time.

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Paula Zwolenski honored with the Humboldt Prize

Paula Zwolenski was awarded the Humboldt Prize 2024 for her bachelor thesis “Sensitive sound recording from the archive. Communication attempts and self-positioning in the sound recording of the Indian prisoner of war Baldeo Singh”.

In her work, she examines how Baldeo Singh used the colonially influenced recording session of the Phonographic Commission to communicate and position himself as an individual speaker. Zwolenski analyses power asymmetries, deconstructs colonial practices and explores perspectives for the decolonization of historical collections.

The Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin honors outstanding academic work by students and early career researchers with the award every year. The award ceremony took place on November 12 in the Lichthof Ost at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Three master theses on Lautarchiv-related subjects in 2024

In 2024, three students successfully completed their Master’s degree with a thesis on a Lautarchiv-related topic.

At the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Cultural Analysis (Prof. Rolando Vázquez), Marie Baur completed her Master’s thesis on ‘Return(s) Listening to and beyond Voice Recordings of Martinican and Guadeloupean Prisoners of War in Germany during the First World War’.

At the Institute for European Ethnology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Dominik Biewer completed his Master’s degree with a thesis on ‘Die Stimme im Vollzug. (Re-)Figurierung einer “kriminellen Stimmaufnahme” im Archiv’ (Prof. Silvy Chakkalakal).

In the Language and Communication degree programme of the Technische Universität Berlin (Prof. Thiering), Luise Haubenreiser completed a linguistic thesis on ‘Das koloniale Archiv als Hort der Macht. Auf der Suche nach dekolonialen Resonanzen in der linguistischen Praxis’.

Congratulations!

All three works can be found in the Lautarchiv’s reference library and can be viewed and read on site by appointment.

The German Lost Art Foundation is funding the research project “Towards Sonic Resocialization” at the Berlin Lautarchiv from 1.3.2024 to 28.2.2026. For the first time, the focus of the research is not on objects but on sound recordings. The Lautarchiv is examining its collection of recordings of prisoners of war from the First World War who were recruited for the armies of European powers in the colonies. These include 456 sound recordings of African prisoners in German camps.

The digitized recordings and the associated historical written documentation are to be shared with the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire in Dakar, Senegal, as well as with other African archives in the future. In the course of this, the existing metadata of the sound archive will also be subject to a critical decolonizing onomastication. This requires questioning and revising the categories and terminologies that emerged in the course of colonisation.

Proactive exchange and cooperation with the respective source communities are particularly important to the project right from the start. Individuals from the countries of origin are employed to translate the recorded texts and documentation. Provenance research is also carried out on the places of origin of the colonial soldiers and genealogical research is conducted to determine possible descendants.

The project aims to create a model for the future handling of colonial heritage in sound archives. In the future, this will be done not only with recordings of speakers from the African continent but also with all colonial recordings in the Lautarchiv.

Shellac record Lautarchiv – Photo © Christopher Li