http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2012/07/25/mediating-the-past-radiolab-revists-the-crossroads/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2012/07/25/mediating-the-past-radiolab-revists-the-crossroads/comment-page-1/#comment-240048 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 15:41:03 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=14375#comment-240048 Thanks Jennifer! You bring up a good point, and considering the inherent mediation of sound recordings, I wonder if we can ever really consider them authentic representations of what an artist has performing. They are absolutely constructs, but also material traces of the past nonetheless, and though I think we cannot argue any ultimate truth about the past, we can explore where power intersects with the past. The fact that so little official history of Johnson remains is actually very telling about the social power and significance of an African American musician in the early 20th century, don’t you think?

]]> http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2012/07/25/mediating-the-past-radiolab-revists-the-crossroads/comment-page-1/#comment-237798 Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:44:25 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=14375#comment-237798 Thanks for your post, Eleanor. For a final twist of irony, there is a controversy among Johnson fans and scholars regarding the recordings themselves. Some audiophiles claim that some or all of Johnson’s famous San Antonio hotel room recording sessions were recorded 10-20% faster than real time (see, for example, the OfficialArmonist youtube channel). Our perceived notions about the veracity of sound recordings as historical documents might also be constructs.

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