Towards a Single Support for Every Sound and Image: Oscillography and What Came After it - Text 3
This device consisted in a process based on the use of a “singing arc,” which visualized the acoustic vibrations emanating from a microphone; a moving picture camera placed in close proximity could film the arc. There was nothing particularly new in this compared to other systems, but Ruhmer’s originality lies in the fact that he succeeded in reproducing the photographed sound. This, in R. Singer’s account, is how he achieved this: “[for] the reproduction, he used an arc lamp; the ray of light being interrupted by the diagram of sounds recorded on the film, the light then acted on the highly sensitive selenium cell connected to a pair of telephone receivers. The light acted on the film stock after having crossed an optical system made up of a cylindrical lens and an optical slit.”[7] Obviously, with such a system, the quality of the sound reproduction could not be the greatest, because the sound was transmitted by mere telephone receivers; in addition the microphones used in those days could transport sound only a short distance without truly amplifying it. Nevertheless, Ernst Ruhmer had succeeded in reproducing it, without being too interested in this aspect, because he did not appear to be captivated by the “entertainment” value of such a feat. He thus did not consider synchronous reproduction with moving images. As Maurice Noverre has written, “Ruhmer was not interested in the problem of synchronizing movement and sound. The goal of his research was the phenomena of the effects of light on selenium.”[8]
