When you base other works on such texts, double-check with a printed source if possible. When we had stopped carving on flat rocks or chiseling pristine Roman type onto Roman walls, the gramophone record eventually became our culture's foremost carrier of engravings. Certainly, a snail also leaves a trail, but the concept of intaglio still seems more primordial than applying color or ink on a surface. 2 Vi impress, and get impressed. A musical piece on a phonograph roll must have a composer and one or more executants, certainly, but still one must distinguish between the work that is written on the music sheet, the work that is sifting through the fingers of a musician or between the vocal cords of a singer, and the work that is finally transmitted through the air, intermixed with room acoustics and background noise.
Reality is what is being preserved.
But, in a certain sense, all kinds of recordings are documentary, both when it comes to sounds and images. Even the feature film is documentary, since it shows us what the studio looked like under certain conditions set by director, lighting engineers, set designers, and actors, for a specific scene. Even Rilke, who lived during this period of transition when these new media emerged, mused a great deal upon both media and the nature of things. In 1919 Rilke decided that he had been tormented long enough by a fantasy he had nurtured since his school years. At some point during the 1890's, his science teacher had showed the students how to construct a simple phonograph from cardboard, paper and wax, and with a bristle from a clothes brush serving as a needle.