UBCO SpokenWeb project team members Evan Berg, Myron Campbell and Karis Shearer work in the AMP Lab on the design aspects for the project.
For the past seven years, the SpokenWeb project at UBC Okanagan has processed a collection of literary audio files—digitizing and preserving hundreds of recordings that could have been lost to time.
The audio tapes have also been tagged with metadata, fully researched and made discoverable through web platforms.
Dr. Karis Shearer, Associate Professor of English and Cultural Studies at UBCO, explains that the audio recordings, many made between 1960 and 1980 by a number of internationally recognized BC poets, have become brittle and were in danger of being lost.
“The magnetic tapes are fragile objects, and over time the tapes degrade and are at risk of becoming unplayable,” says Dr. Shearer, who has worked with a team of librarians, literary scholars, artists and students to preserve these recordings. “In the AMP Lab, we have the legacy technology to read and play these objects, so digitizing them allows us to hold on to that history.”
Now that these literary collections are more accessible, it’s time to make the collections public—to “re-sound” them, as Dr. Shearer says—and let them be used for research and teaching.
Next week, researchers and artists from across Canada are coming to Kelowna for a four-day program of discussions, workshops, performances and exhibitions hosted and organized by the SpokenWeb project. Named Re-Sounding Poetries: Collections, Classrooms, Communities, the event will also celebrate the preservation of these recordings.
The SpokenWeb is a partnership among 12 institutions across Canada, partially funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. It has been dedicated, under the leadership of Concordia University professor Jason Camlot, to preserving these literary audio recordings on magnetic tape as well as researching and teaching with those tapes.
“In Western academic institutions, literary study has been mainly focused on print,” explains Dr. Shearer, director of UBC’s AMP Lab. “While the reading of poetry aloud has its own long history, it has never been a focus of the study and teaching of literature. Developing new and collaborative approaches to researching and teaching with sound has been the main focus of the SpokenWeb project over the past seven years and we’re excited to share these methods with the wider community.”
She notes that most tape recordings in this project haven’t been listened to in decades, if ever. The collection has been digitized, and many tapes are being made available to the public to listen to for the first time on the SoundBox Collection website and at next week’s Re-Sounding Poetries event.
Co-organized by Dr. Shearer and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Klara du Plessis, this immersive series of workshops will take place at UBC’s Okanagan campus and downtown Kelowna from May 14 to 17.
During the four days of the immersive institute, Drs. Shearer and du Plessis are convening academics, archivists, librarians, artists and members of larger creative and teaching communities to exchange ideas, methods and art focused on the intersection of sound and literature.
“Re-Sounding Poetries will gather people from a variety of areas of expertise,” explains Dr. du Plessis. “Collections of recorded poetry are best understood by bringing together these specialists including the archivists, librarians, scholars, artists, technicians, teachers and poets themselves.”
The conference will offer panel discussions, workshops on podcasting and spoken word performances, with an open mic hosted by the Inspired Word Café. There will also be three exhibitions of archival materials and research projects, curated by UBCO doctoral student Slava Bart, Sarah Cipes who is currently working on her master’s degree and UBCO alumna Erin Scott.
A workshop series, hosted at UBCO in the Creative and Critical Studies building, as well as the Special Collections and Archives located in The Commons, will have limited spots reserved for the public. These workshops take place May 16 starting at 10:30 am, and are available at a reduced rate of $35 for all of three.
“Our four-day gathering will function like an immersive summer camp experience for students, faculty and members of diverse communities to engage creatively and critically with archival audio,” says Dr. Shearer. “The final product will be a diverse and innovative series of events for everyone.”
Re-Sounding Poetries Sound Institute has received support from the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Inspired Word Cafe, the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, UBC Okanagan Library and funding from a SSHRC Connection Grant.
For more information and to register for the full Re-Sounding Poetries Sound Institute or individual workshops, visit: events.ok.ubc.ca/event/re-sounding-poetries-collections-classrooms-communities.
