The noises made by physical products are not just part of their charm and emotional engagement. These noises provide clues to help us understand how the product works. We’ve often used these sounds in digital products but as time goes by they lose their significance to the listener – does a spinning dial in an app. need to map to an analog dial to reinforce it’s function?
Conserve the sound« is an online museum for vanishing and endangered sounds. The sound of a dial telephone, a walkman, a analog typewriter, a pay phone, a 56k modem, a nuclear power plant or even a cell phone keypad are partially already gone or are about to disappear from our daily life.
Accompanying the archive people are interviewed and give an insight in to the world of disappearing sounds.
Great project. I can guarantee my kids would not be able to recognize the majority of these products by sound alone.