So we can store everything in digital form now. Except when we can’t, when it’s something ephemeral that didn’t get persisted when it occurred. Except that maybe we can? I’d like to talk about the frontiers of digital recreations of irreproducible historical phenomena, like sound before recordings, not to mention things like smell, taste, and touch. This last might be having its dawn with 3D printing, and it seems there are explorations of how to work with sound: Niall Atkinson & my colleague Peter Leonard’s work with the bells of Renaissance Florence comes to mind, as does the researcher who made a stab at speaking Indo-European, and perhaps the HIPSTAS work could be turned to these ends.
Oct 18
