Conserve the Sound

TAKE AN AURAL TRIP THROUGH OUR TECHNOLOGICAL PAST.

“Conserve the Sound is an online archive for disappearing sounds”, the site’s description reads. The project is funded by the Film & Medienstiftung NRW and, while still in beta, offers up a rather extensive library of sounds that would otherwise have vanished from all but memory. When landing on the home page, you’ll be met with a screen full of wonderful images of old-school tech — from pinball machines and typewriters to bilateral Columbus scales — and when you click through to one of the curio’s pages, you’ll be able to hear an audio recording of the device in action. When browsing through the sound library, you can organise the collection by its decade, going as far back as the 1910s, or by categories such as computer, coffee grinder, plane, or phone. There’s a series of video interviews to watch as well (with English subtitles) if you want to hear more about the philosophy of preserving audio heritage.