From the first visit at the archive in Örebro I started thinking of the concept of archiving: From papyrus to paper to printing to the digital. The historical document is transferred, and the concrete physical places of storage with walls nowadays has transformed into a more accessible technical platform: the software-based. Both objects and documents can now be stored in a 2-dimensional form. Örebro Läns museum has in collaboration with the archive started a digital platform to archive objects, images and documents.

My question, ”how does a digital archive sound?”, came through researching how we preserve knowledge, information and how we decode the information transformed into a digital form. The images I chose are found in the digital archive in Örebro Läns Museum. It consists of pictures of women playing or posing with a guitar. Any further information about them is lacking. What did the instrument mean to them and why were they posing with it? Is there some kind of information missing? Is it an echo of their position in society or is it just a prop for the picture?

The form is a combination of parts for guitars, elm and walnut, a steel construction inspired of a circuit board and mechanical devices. Some of the devices contain the digitalised information of the old images that also exist in the archive, Örebro. Once more they are translated, but now into physical sound that can be experienced during the exhibition. The images have been selected by the archivist due to the limits of not being able to play all of the pictures from the archive during the time of the exhibition.