INTRO: There are many factors at play during an interview, affecting both the questions being asked and the stories being told. In this blog post, current OHMA student Lauren Instenes analyses the impact of one of the less talked about factors, space.

Most interviews in oral history do not take place in a sound-proof recording booth like the one you see above. Yet, when you listen to an oral history interview from an archive, you often hear two clear voices with very minimal background noise. We engineer interviews to be this way, asking narrators to meet in a quiet place, closing windows or doors to limit disturbances, turning off air conditioners or dehumidifiers that may be humming in the background and even asking the interviewee to remain as still as possible so that their own movement doesn’t mess up our audio quality. This is so we can later edit the interview and use it in creative ways. Unfortunately, this also has the effect of making it sound like these voices are floating in space, removing the where and when from the interview, two extremely important factors in shaping the conversation.

In Rachel Falcone’s recent workshop discussion , she showed us a behind the scenes look at how she edits down interviews to highlight the stories she wants the world to hear. Falcone played clips from an interview with an elderly couple to give an example of the different ways stories could be told.

After listening to the interview, we reflected on the anger and hurt in the voices of the  couple: we could tell it was still a very raw topic for them to discuss. Falcone then showed us images of their house, which was where the interview took place. The house was falling apart, with holes in the floorboards and sewage dripping through the ceiling. As listeners, this helped us not only to contextualize the story we heard previously, but to also understand the reason the story sounded so raw – the elderly couple were reminded of their struggles everywhere they looked during the interview.

But this space didn’t just have an impact on the narrators. Falcone was also bearing witness to their struggle by being in that room and seeing their living conditions. Listening to Falcone talk about this story, you can tell that being in that space made a strong impression on her and might have affected the questions she decided to ask. While the couple does a good job at describing their environment, having the additional photos and Falcone in the room to describe the space to us, we as listeners are able to listen to and understand this story on a different level. The space not only affects the listening of the interviewer but also of the wider listening audience.

There are multiple ways oral historians can address and use this idea of space as a way to add another layer of meaning to our work. Sometimes, we are able to capture background noise that adds texture to the sound, such as children playing in another room, interactions with  pets, coffee shop or park sounds. While these become difficult to work with if you are doing editing, they can have the benefit of inviting the listener in to the interview and allow them to participate in a new way. However, this sound does not provide much information regarding how the interview itself might have been shaped by the space it was done in.

It is common practice to state on tape where the interview is being recorded and to take detailed field notes about the space after the interview, but it is less common practice to make those fieldnotes public. On his podcast Making Gay History, Eric Marcus [AS1] provides a rich example about how these notes can bring the listener into the world of the interview, providing a new understanding of what is taking place in the dialogical exchange. Prior to playing parts of his interview with Hal Call, Marcus describes where the interview took place in great detail, adding in his personal feelings on the space.

Here’s the scene and it was quite a scene because Hal Call’s office was above the Circle J Cinema, which was a sex club and porn theater he owned and ran in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district…. So I was a bit tentative walking in, but a little curious, too. And I know that because my post-interview notes were unusually detailed. Hal meets me in the dark entryway and I follow him into the theater, which looks almost like a small chapel… There’s a film showing and a couple of men in the audience. We go up a narrow staircase to a spacious, bright office. A long wall is filled floor to ceiling with video cassettes. Another wall is lined with rows of empty vodka bottles. We sit on a long sofa facing TV screens showing jerk off films. …  As I unpack my tape recorder and microphones I tell myself I’m going to have to avoid looking up because I’ll never be able to keep my train of thought. … There’s a video camera set up on a stand next to where Hal is sitting and it’s focused on me.  I clip the microphone to his shirt and he reaches over to his video camera and presses record.  I press record, too.

Listening to the interview alone, you would only hear two men discussing the history of the gay liberation movement, but there are many other factors at play. Marcus is made uncomfortable not only by the images he is seeing around the room, but by the fact that there is a video camera  on him. This will obviously affect the interview and Marcus’s ability to listen to Hal’s stories.

Providing this kind of context for your intended audience can add so many layers of understanding to your work. Pictures of the space, video recordings, and even your own reflections are extremely important to providing a fuller representation of your narrators. People do not exist in isolation, even when interviews take place within a sound-proof box, we all have outside forces that affect the way we tell stories and also the way we listen to them. We shouldn’t pretend these forces don’t exist, instead we should use them in ways that help these stories come alive to our audiences and allow for even deeper forms of understanding.

Lauren Instenes is a queer activist and storyteller who is a current OHMA student. In the past, Lauren has used her passion for theater and community service to further LGBTQ movements through storytelling. This year, Lauren is exploring how oral histories can be used in different media to empower communities, raise awareness and create change. To learn more about her work visit her recent online exhibit called Fifty Years of Pride at Why Not III: Creating Queer Space in the Midwest.