Substitutes for the Missing

Eva Hallama (2023): “Voice Letters as Substitutes for the Missing in the SONIME project”
Workshop “Voices in Motion – Audio letters as ‘Sonic Memory Objects’ in Migration Processes”
Wiener Postsparkasse, Vienna
June 15, 2023

Presentation of the SONIME project at the Panel Voice Letters as Epistolary Practice (Eva Hallama, Thomas Levin, Chair: Nadia Al-Bagdadi) and discussion.
Eva Hallama presented preliminary findings of the project, the research goals, e.g. building a reference collection of audio letters, the analysis of the voice as a cultural technique and the material analysis, as well as various audio formats and recording devices.
She defined the term “memory object” as an entanglement of materiality, the processes of substituting for the missing and the processes of longing and remembering. Moreover, she explained by using psychoanalytical theory how listening to a recorded voice enables closeness and initimacy in times of being apart.
Additionally, she went into detail about the material culture of audio letters, how the technical formats influenced the spoken messages, and the preservation efforts of the project.