Re-Sounding the Archive:
Sound Archives, Memory, and Creative Practice
Online seminar series 1pm, Friday 17, 24 & 31 July
Across three lunchtime talks, invited speakers will share perspectives from their own artistic and research practices, with a particular focus on how sound archives are listened to, interpreted, recontextualised and creatively reworked. The series considers sound archives in an expanded sense, encompassing spoken word, oral history, music, song, field recordings, environmental sound and other forms of recorded sound.
The talks will explore how archival sound materials can be reactivated through contemporary practice, and how artists and researchers engage ethically and imaginatively with recorded materials, communities, histories and places.
The series is programmed by Professor Duncan MacLeod, with funding from The Glasgow School of Art, as part of the Research Development SEED Fund project Bi Glic!
All talks will take place online via Teams at 1pm. Please click on the link below each talk to book a place. For further information please email: D.MacLeod@gsa.ac.uk
Programme
Professor Cathy Lane Friday 17 July, 1pm
TEAMS LINK/ REGISTER ATTENDANCE
Title: Collection and re-use: some thoughts about the strange history of the Sound Archive
Abstract
A talking and listening session thinking about the nature of sound archives in general and how archival sound might be used in sound art practices. I will focus on aspects of my work with sound, history and memory specifically works with composed sound that collect archive material in real time; re-use existing archival recordings ( many from Scottish collections) and re-sound materials when histories or voices are silenced.
Biography
Cathy Lane is an artist, composer, writer, curator and ex-academic. She works primarily in sound, combining oral history, archival recordings, spoken word and environmental recordings to create non-linear narratives which investigate histories, environments, our collective and individual memories and the forces that shape them. She is inspired by investigating aspects of everyday experience from a feminist perspective.
Fraser MacBeath Friday 24 July, 1pm
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Title: Sound Archives, Identity and What Comes Next
Abstract
Sound archives are often understood as records of what has already happened. This talk considers them as active cultural material, capable of changing how a person understands themselves and of revealing traces of an evolving story that is becoming obscured. As global culture becomes increasingly dominant and places grow more alike, those traces can offer ways of reconnecting with and continuing to shape collective and personal identity. Drawing on the development of his installation Aghaidh Ris an Achadh, which examines population decline and cultural stagnation in the Outer Hebrides, Fraser MacBeath reflects on how engaging with archival recordings altered his relationship to Hebridean culture. What began as an attempt to sample and reshape archival material gradually became a way of recognising threads of cultural identity that had been weakened, interrupted or pushed from view. Reflecting on the five-year development of this work, the talk explores how archives can do more than preserve memory. They can unsettle inherited assumptions, create new forms of belonging, and offer artists a way to work between continuity and change. Creative reuse, in this sense, is not only about celebrating history, but about giving people agency to help a culture imagine its future.
Biography
Fraser MacBeath is an audiovisual artist, composer and field recordist from the Isle of Lewis. His practice looks in part to continue the legacy left by 20th-century field recordists who documented rural Scottish culture, while also using the material to create contemporary artworks that reflect modern realities. Using the mediums of sound, film and installation, Frasercreates work which combines elements of sound art and ambient music with abstract film and immersive environments. His works often embody a dual nature. One which marries traditional elements with contemporary audiovisual technology. Creating narratives which weave past and present, evoking reflections on memory, sense of place, cultural identity, and the relationship between tradition and modernity. His work has been exhibited at venues and festivals including the Royal Scottish Academy, The University of Edinburgh, An Lanntair, Taigh Chearsabhagh, Hulabhaig, the International Island Games in Guernsey and Hidden Door. He has received commissions and support from Creative Scotland, Isle of Harris Distillery, the University of Edinburgh, Anam Creative and the School of Scottish Studies Archives. His sound and performance work has been presented through Radiophrenia, Nordic Music Days, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and Wave Farm in New York.
Website: https://frasermacbeath.squarespace.com/
Dr Brian Harnetty Friday 31 July, 1pm
TEAMS LINK / REGISTER ATTENDANCE
Title: Noisy Memory: Ways of Performing Archives
Abstract
In this talk, composer and sound artist Brian Harnetty will discuss his decades-long work of listening to archives and the communities connected to them. He will also share his interdisciplinary approach to re-interpreting archival materials. He’ll also share excerpts of recordings, including murder ballads and oral histories from Appalachia, the Afrofuturistic music of Sun Ra in Chicago, and the inner thoughts of monk and writer Thomas Merton in Kentucky.
Biography
Dr Brian Harnetty is an interdisciplinary sound artist who works with archives and communities to foster social change. He creates sonic encounters centered on place and the transformative power of listening. Since 2010, Harnetty’s projects have brought together history, ecology, and economy in Appalachian Ohio, informed by his family's roots there. His recent project, Words and Silences, was among the top albums in The Wire Magazine, Mojo Magazine, Allmusic, and Aquarium Drunkard. Harnetty has also twice received 5/5 star reviews from Mojo, and twice received their “Underground Album of the Year.” Harnetty has earned many national awards, including the Creative Capital Award, New Music USA, the MAP Fund Award, and the A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art. Harnetty lives in Columbus, Ohio (USA). He studied music composition with Michael Finnissy and Steve Martland (MMus, Royal Academy of Music), and earned a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts, with a focus on sound art (Ohio University). He is the author of Noisy Memory: Recording Sound, Performing Archives (University of North Carolina Press, 2025), and Forest Listening Rooms (forthcoming, 2027).
Website: https://www.brianharnetty.com/
About the series
The series is intended as a space for exchange between artists, researchers, students and practitioners interested in sound archives and creative sound practice. It will consider how archival recordings can be returned to, reinterpreted and shared through contemporary artistic and research practices.
The talks will be of interest to those working across sound art, composition, oral history, archival practice, heritage, field recording, documentary media, place-based research, music, storytelling and community-engaged arts.