Remixing Grandma's Voice

From: Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs
Length: 02:12

When Afi Scruggs digitized an interview with her late grandmother, she recalled truism about technology: every time a format changes, important information risks loss. This essay reflects on capturing and keeping memories - and what happens when original sources are lost. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Remixing Grandma's Voice
From: Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs

Elizabeth_and_grandmother_forprx_small Conversations about data transference or archiving usually veer into discussions of technology and software. That was the mindset I was in when I digitized an interview I'd taped with my grandmother in Nashville, Tenn. on July 4, 1990.

As I listened to the interview, though, I recalled a lesson I'd learned from teaching Mass Communications: every time a format changes, important information risks loss. When I talked to my grandmother, I thought I was preserving a dying style of African-American singing. Instead I'd created an audio portrait that could bring ancestral voices to future generations - if they could access it.

My grandmother passed away in October, 2011, a few months after I created this essay. It is a meditation on transferring and archiving memories in the 21st century.

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Piece Description

Conversations about data transference or archiving usually veer into discussions of technology and software. That was the mindset I was in when I digitized an interview I'd taped with my grandmother in Nashville, Tenn. on July 4, 1990.

As I listened to the interview, though, I recalled a lesson I'd learned from teaching Mass Communications: every time a format changes, important information risks loss. When I talked to my grandmother, I thought I was preserving a dying style of African-American singing. Instead I'd created an audio portrait that could bring ancestral voices to future generations - if they could access it.

My grandmother passed away in October, 2011, a few months after I created this essay. It is a meditation on transferring and archiving memories in the 21st century.