This paper examines the act of singing with early phonautograph recordings as a method for exploring the intersection of sound, archival practices, and embodied experience. These phonautographs, which produced visual traces of sound on soot-covered paper in the 19th century, could not originally be replayed. However, modern digital technology has enabled their playback, allowing contemporary listeners to interact with voices from the past. This interaction serves as a foundation for a duet between the listener's voice and the archive, exploring the material, affective, and relational dimensions of sound.

The study draws on queer feminist archival methodologies to interrogate the implications of interacting with unwilling, unknowing voices from history. It questions the fetishization of proximity in archival and artistic practices and considers the ethics of engaging with bodies and traces that cannot consent. Through the lens of personal and historical narratives, the paper addresses themes of transformation, loss, and recognition within voice and sound. The shifting temporalities of the recordings are linked to concepts of gender as fluid, time-based constructs, emphasizing the interplay between past and present in the embodied act of singing.

By situating the phonautograph recordings within broader cultural and technological frameworks, the paper challenges traditional assumptions about archives and liveness. It proposes that singing with these traces represents a form of "deep listening," as theorized by Pauline Oliveros, fostering relationality across temporal and material divides. Ultimately, this work positions duet singing as a method of critical engagement with history, offering a transformative way of experiencing and interpreting archival voices.