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Optical sound, or sound-on-film, became established by the late 1920s. It is based on an optical process whereby sound waves are transformed into graphic patterns of light alongside the picture area of the film print. Since optical sound emanates from visual patterns, it is possible to create sounds by scratching, drawing, or contact-printing directly onto the photochemical filmstrip to make any shape or mark audible. Instead of being a thing of the past, the more recent history of experimental film proves that handmade sound is back. It would be easy to misinterpret the rise of optical sound in artisanal filmmaking practices simply as anxiety about the obsolescence of film and the dominance of the digital. However, harking back to old technologies and methods is crucial from both an aesthetic and a political perspective and opens out to broader questions of matter and materiality that dominate contemporary discourse and raise compelling questions about the afterlife of the cinematic medium.