The Audium Archive
Words by Blanca Bercial
Of, in, by, behind, below, across,
between, inside, at, for sound
Audium Theater, c. 1975. Image: Audium archive
"This isn't all of it. What do you think about organizing this?"
At first, I didn't know where to begin. In front of me was an archive that contained a vibrant and complex history: the history of electronic music in the Bay Area and the story of an artistic project that forever changed how sound is perceived in space. It’s an archive that also holds the story of two people who set out to create something entirely new, the story of a family, and the story of a place. Audium is recognized as the first theater dedicated to the spatialization of sound, pioneering the integration of spatial awareness into musical composition and immersive sound experiences. Founded by San Francisco musicians and educators Stan Shaff and Doug McEachern, its origins are intertwined with the Bay Area via influential dance workshops led by Anna Halprin, the countercultural light shows of the 1960s by Seymour Locks, and the historic Tape Music Center. Audium's archive also holds great significance beyond the Bay Area in the history of electronic music, musique concrète, tape recording, and sound art.
I first became involved with Audium in 2019 while working on a thesis that focused on the soundscape of San Francisco. After graduating from art school and once the pandemic receded, I started working full time contributing to the theater’s curatorial vision and running the shows periodically. Around that time, I was handed the archive. The idea was to familiarize myself with the philosophy behind Audium and its trajectory over the years in order to organize the archive and make it accessible to future researchers.I was especially excited about this role as it offered me a deeper insight into the history of sound art, a central focus of my research, while also allowing me to regularly talk to Stan and his son, Dave Shaff, to fill in where the archive became blurry.
Stan Shaff and Doug McEachern, c. 1975. Image: Audium archive
The archive has been in existence since Audium's inception and it holds not only the works created but the moments, decisions and intentions that shaped them.
Part of the Audium tape archive. Image: Emma Scully/Audium
The audio tape archive contains complete compositions by Stan and a comprehensive record of every composition created for Audium since its founding in the late 1950s. It comprises around 100 stereo 7-inch reel tapes, 150 stereo 5-inch reel tapes, 75 stereo cassette tapes, and 15 four-channel reel-to-reel tapes that contain field recordings, electronic sounds, and audio recordings that are the building blocks of the seminal Audium compositions. There are also recordings of performances held at Audium's original theater location on 4th Avenue during the mid-1960s and at its current venue at 1616 Bush Street starting in 1975 to the present.
The printed collection meticulously chronicles the evolution of Audium’s performances, beginning with its initial public presentations at San Francisco State and the San Francisco Museum of Art in the early 1960s. It includes scores, detailed records of Audium’s shows, programs, posters, press reviews from a wide range of sources, personal artifacts, and correspondence with fellow musicians, academics, students, and nonprofits.
Close-up of stereo 5-inch reel tape. Image: Emma Scully/Audium
However, not everything is labeled. Some tapes have stickers indicating which composition they belong to, but many others don’t. Applause, voices, monkeys, water drops? A myriad of unclassifiable sounds are stored in the tapes. Among the most fascinating discoveries was a small box of cards, organized alphabetically, containing the name of sounds and the corresponding number of the tape, like a tiny library of Audium’s sounds. We are currently generating metadata entries for each object in the collection and labeling them accordingly. The organizing process began by focusing on the correspondence first, as those documents had dates that could guide us in using time as a classification criterion. Afterward, we cataloged other items such as journals, newspaper clippings, programs, essays, and photographs.
Audium’s library of sounds. Image: Emma Scully/Audium
At first, when I had the freedom to reorganize the archive as I wished, I felt like an intruder. It was like peering through a small crack in the wall of someone else’s house, holding the key, but unsure of how to step in. However, when my colleague Emma Scully joined the archiving efforts, her unique vantage point as a member of the Shaff family gave me confidence when dealing with the more personal objects in the archive like the poems, drawings, and family photos. I became touched by how the story of Audium is intertwined with that of a family, and how that family’s history has become a part of the project.
One of the most moving parts of the archive has been discovering letters written by Audium visitors. Some of these letters were heartfelt expressions of appreciation or questions directed to Stan about his creative process, while others were filled with criticism and offered suggestions on how to improve the performances. One of my favorites was a letter criticizing Stan and Doug's attire, written with a permanent marker on a napkin. I love imagining that the person who wrote it likely thought they were doing them a favor, and I like to think that Stan kept the letter as a funny reminder. Another great find was a journal in which Stan recorded his feelings and frustrations about Audium while waiting for people to arrive at performances. It’s a reminder for me that these moments are part of every artistic process and that it’s okay to feel them.
Close-up of letter from an audience member to Stan Shaff and Doug McEachern, c. 1967. Image: Audium Archive
Sometimes, I walk through the studio and hear someone digitizing old tapes: the Ampex machine reading the tape, the reel spinning, the textures of the sound, the noise, the splices. Audium is a creature, a memory that is passed down through its sounds, the stories of its founder Stan and those of his son Dave who continues the story. I sometimes feel as though I'm working with an archive that continually shapeshifts. Audium has grown and transformed over the years, but the core ideas of the project, such as the importance of space in sound, movement as a compositional element, and the audience as a fundamental part of the piece, remain unchanged. You can listen to Stan speak for hours, and he will always use different analogies to convey the same idea. What he says becomes tangible in the sounds and space he created.
Audium’s performances are like passageways where sound becomes architecture designed to lead you to a place that stays with you in memory.
This year, with the help of a small grant from California Revealed, we are working to formalize the cataloging process. While we have been creating an inventory of the archive on our own for some time, this grant is supporting us with a mentor who is guiding us on the proper cataloging techniques with the ultimate goal of digitizing the archive. Every day we’re learning how to care for and understand this archive, and soon we hope to make it accessible to a wider audience.
Blanca Bercial investigates the idiosyncrasies of silence in public spaces. Originally from Madrid, and based in San Francisco since 2018, she operates at the intersection of contemporary art and sound. She is currently involved with Audium, where she contributes to the curatorial vision, programming, and archive management. Blanca holds a Master of Arts in History and Theory of Contemporary Art from the San Francisco Art Institute, earned in 2020. Her research in sound studies has been presented at national and international symposiums. Blanca also writes poetry and plays.
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