Feature: The British Library Sound Archive

The Archival Sound Recordings project makes a variety of music, spoken word, and environmental sounds from the British Library Sound Archive available online and is part of the British Library’s ongoing commitment to improving access and ensuring the preservation of invaluable primary source materials for research, teaching and learning.

All recordings on the Archival Sound Recordings site (http://sounds.bl.uk/) can be accessed from British Library reading rooms and are available free to licensed UK higher and further education institutions. Where copyright clearance permits, recordings are available universally. Happily, this is the case with much of the ICA Talks collection.

ICA Talks consists of 1000 hours of recordings of events at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, made in the period 1981-1994.

The range of speakers is very broad, and represents a roll-call of 1980s cultural movers and shakers from the worlds of literature, art, music and film. The material is expected to be of interest to students and academics belonging to varied academic constituencies: literary studies, film studies, gender studies and cultural studies generally.

Writers and poets featured include Ariel Dorfman, Toni Morrison, Camille Paglia, James Kelman, Kurt Vonnegut, Greil Marcus, Jon Savage, Armistead Maupin, Kathy Acker, William Gibson, Shere Hite, James Herbert, Hanif Kureishi, Alexei Sayle, Spalding Gray and many others.

Artists, filmmakers, designers and others featured include cartoonist Steve Bell; performance artist Marina Abramovic; artists Christo, Sophie Calle, Barbara Kruger and Jeff Koons; fashion designers BodyMap; graphic novelists Art Speigelman and Alan Moore; filmmakers Derek Jarman and Paul Bartel; plus John Cage, Malcom McLaren and many others.

The British Library has made every effort to track down contributors to these talks but some are unidentified or untraced. If you took part and have not been contacted by the Library we would appreciate your getting in touch. Please email soundarchive_IPR@bl.uk or call +44 (0)20 7412 7421.

Back to news page