The photographs were made with 2 Canon Powershot S80’s. The video made use of a Sony PC-110E and an HDR-FX1 (2006), the 110E and a VX-2000 (2007). Although the video pieces use the camera's on-board microphone, the sound pieces were recorded on compact flash recorders: an M-Audio Microtrack 2496 (which was reliable) and an Edirol R-1 (which was not). We used binaural microphones. This is a well-known technique that should not be confused with stereo recording despite the fact that binaural material is best listened to with stereo headphones. Binaural recording makes use of two microphones a short distance apart pointing in opposite directions. Professional setups use an artificial head and place the microphones in the ‘ears’ though it is now possible to make good recordings with in-ear microphones, replacing the artificial head with your own one. The process effectively duplicates natural hearing with the sound reaching the ear furthest away from it slightly later. It thus generates the strong spatial feeling of natural hearing when headphones are used to listen. There is a disadvantage to using your own head  though — if you don’t hold it still, the listener will become disoriented as the sonic world spins rapidly on its axis. Two of the recordings on the DVD ROM do exactly this — one deliberately and one involuntarily because of shaking hands with someone who came from the side.

Finally, we would like to record our thanks here to our two travelling companions — Dimiter Hristov, ‘M’ in the text (2006) and Borjana K.-Strasser, ‘B’ in the text (2007). They not only not only drove us around but in fact set the tone of our visits, each in their own way. While driving longer stretches every day, M supplied us with information about the last twenty years in Bulgaria and was adept at smoothing our way, whether into restaurants or ruins.

B’s strength lay in the contacts she already had with Roma families, those she made for us through her own family and her ability to get into conversation with anyone we wanted to talk to. This led to a very rewarding visit to a Pomak family and conversations with rose pickers in the fields outside Kazanlak amongst others. Without them our DVD ROM project would have been impossible. We would also like to thank both the Jorgov family and the Babechka family for their hospitality. Those visits greatly enriched our first hand experience and the project with video material. Thanks are also due to Gospodin Kolev for talking to us about his experiences as a politician during the communist period and the history of the Roma in Bulgaria. Finally we would like to thank B’s father, Dr. Pantju Karapantev. Because of his extensive knowledge and network of contacts he arranged interviews and access to the Arsenal in Kazanlak. He also acted as our infallible mobile phone encyclopaedia.

Lisl Ponger, Tim Sharp
Vienna 2008