Page 75 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

Introduction
The voice and sound are a mystery to many – so familiar yet so unknown. Their influence was well known to Silvia, but she was not aware of
it until recently. Silvia is a nurse. A few days ago, as a result of a serious misunderstanding with a patient, she realised that bedside manner influ- ences patients’ mood and health. Analysing what had happened, she remembered the interview which had earned her a job at the health centre: an interview where her manner of expression was decisive. But she had not been conscious of the power of oral language until then. Yet Silvia is a person who uses many sound sources in her day-to-day life. She goes to the theatre twice
a month, but had never stopped to think that she was witnessing the purest form of orality. Silvia also adores music and subscribed to an online music platform not long ago. She likes stories – who doesn’t? – and always used to read aloud to her daughter and hired a storyteller
for her birthday parties. Lately, as Silvia doesn’t have so much time to read, she has discovered she can carry on enjoying good stories through audiobooks. And she has gradually got into the habit of wearing earphones wherever she goes. It was only a matter of time before she discovered podcasts. Now she listens to podcasts, not just music, on the way to the gym and when she
is out walking the dog. And she has studied Italian that way. She also listens to programmes about the cinema and about art that help her understand sculpture better and, when she is able to concentrate better, podcasts specialising in health – apart from listening to fiction, that is, for, as we pointed out, Silvia loves stories. Therefore, not only does she live in a world of sound, but sound and voices have become the most important means of communication, learn- ing, cultural improvement and entertainment for Silvia. Like Silvia, many people use sound as a means of accessing the information they need and of accessing culture and entertainment. Some authors regard what is happening as a return to the leading role of orality – an orality we have never lost, though we had reviled it.
We have gone from a world centred purely on written culture to digital orality. But what is
the reason for this prominence oral forms enjoy today? To find the answer, we will briefly survey the shift from primary to digital orality. After analysing the reasons for this change, we will then examine its component elements, sound and voice, before going on to examine its contri- butions to the culture and art industries.
The newfound prominence of orality: from primary
to digital orality
It had never occurred to Silvia that orality lies at the origin of human history, as the oldest form of communication. Although the exact date is not known, humans acquired the ability to speak some 300,000 years ago (Mizrach, 19981). They started off uttering simple grunts, which grad- ually developed into language (Salzmann, 1993). This so-called early orality (Ong and Hartley, 2016) was a purely oral form of communication that coexisted with pictorial representations. But humans needed a way of making the spoken word permanent, of somehow recording it. And so, more or less 6,000 years ago, writing was invented as an evolution of oral language, a code for representing the spoken word. The possibility then arose of storing information in its original state. This is another fact of which Silvia was un- aware. Her schooling had been strongly centred on written language and she took for granted that it had always been around. Yet writing is
a very recent invention compared to how long humans have been speaking.
The appearance of writing deeply changed knowledge and ways of thinking. But this change was not immediate. Poetry recitals continued to be common among the Roman elites. The major transformation occurred with the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in about 1450. This invention made it possible to reproduce and copy manuscripts quickly and they accordingly spread and became popular. But we can only
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
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Digital Trends in Culture