Jean-Baptiste Masson

TAPES AS SONIC LOG BOOKS: THE CASE OF PAUL‑EMILE VICTOR DURING HIS POLAR EXPEDITIONS

This presentation is a study of the magnetic tapes recorded by Paul-Emile Victor during expeditions in Greenland and Antarctica, in the end of the 1950s and during the 1960s. Instead of writing a log-book, Victor spoke to a microphone to record the activities of the day and his impressions. Radio communications with other settlements but also with the plane bringing supplies, were also recorded. Because the recordings were made in a shelter in harsh conditions, there is a lot of background noises: static from the radio transmissions, malfunctions of the tape recorder because of power disruptions, but also voices of other members of the expedition, and the sounds of daily life in the shelter. Besides the everyday operations, some tapes contain more tragic moments, as when one of the expedition members was attacked by a polar bear. In front of the microphone, Victor shares his doubts and concerns about his wounded man, but also about what should be revealed to Paris and to the press. In this talk, I will start by presenting the conditions under which these tapes were recorded. I will then focus on the use and politics of sound recording in a remote place: the place of the still novel technology of the tape recorder in a polar expedition, the unique moments that were recorded and those that were not, what these tapes bring in comparison with a written log-book. A point will also be made on the aesthetics of these recordings, with an emphasis on how the noises and defaults bring a specific atmosphere.

Jean-Baptiste Masson is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie / Bienvenüe fellow based at the Université Rennes 2 and a research fellow at the Cinémathèque de Bretagne, where he works on a manual for the restoration of the sound of amateur films. He was previously a fellow of the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities at the University of York, where he worked on the history of the sonic practices of amateur sound recordists, in France and Britain. Besides his research, Jean-Baptiste is also a composer and improviser working with instruments, microphones, and machines.