Sound - Time - Space

limited

extended

During the past 120 years, inventors and engineers have created various physical media in order to record, store and playback sound.

Beginning with acetate discs and wax cylinders, great thinkers have brought sounds from the past into the present. Newer digital technologies such as portable magnetic disc media (e.g., CD, DVD formats) and solid state devices promise to maintain our sounds for longer periods of time with less decay.

And yet, we are still bouncing our sounds from one format to the next, due to the speed of technological changes.

The Library of Congress estimates that all new physical media has a limited lifespan of approximately 5 years! Soon, we will have to copy our recordings to another device, and the old ones will either be forgotten or will begin to decay.