Sound

121 Pages·2011·1.189 MB·English

by  Caleb Kelly

Vito Acconci//Svetlana Alpers//Laurie Anderson//
Jacques Attali//Harry Bertoia//John Cage//Kim
Cascone//Germano Celant//Michel Chion//Ralph T.
Coe//Steven Connor//Christoph Cox//Martin Creed//
Philip Dadson//Suzanne Delehanty//Paul DeMarinis//
Helmut Draxler//Marcel Duchamp//Bill Fontana//
William Furlong//Liam Gillick//Kim Gordon//Dan
Graham//Paul Hegarty//Martin Herbert//Chrissie Iles//
Tom Johnson//Branden W. Joseph//Douglas Kahn//
Allan Kaprow//Mike Kelley//Seth Kim-Cohen//Yves
Klein//Christina Kubisch//Brandon LaBelle//Dan
Lander//Bernhard Leitner//Alvin Lucier//Len Lye//
Christian Marclay//W.J.T. Mitchell//Robert Morris//
Alexandra Munroe//Bruce Nauman//Max Neuhaus//
Hermann Nitsch//Michael Nyman//Jacques Rancière//
Steve Roden//Luigi Russolo//R. Murray Schafer//Michel
Serres//Steven Shaviro//Mieko Shiomi//Michael Snow//
Antonio Somaini//Emily Ann Thompson//Yasunao
Tone//David Toop//Bill Viola//Paul Virilio
Sound
S O U
Whitechapel Gallery
London
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
N D
Edited by Caleb Kelly Documents of Contemporary Art
Co-published by Whitechapel Gallery Series Editor: Iwona Blazwick Documents of Contemporary Art
and The MIT Press Commissioning Editor: Ian Farr
Project Editor: Hannah Vaughan
First published 2011 Design by SMITH: Victoria Forrest, Namkwan Cho
© 2011 Whitechapel Gallery Ventures Limited Printed and bound in China
All texts © the authors or the estates of the authors,
unless otherwise stated Cover, front, Christian Marclay, Untitled (Sonic
Youth, Soul Asylum and One Mix Tape) (2008),
Whitechapel Gallery is the imprint of Whitechapel cyanotype on paper (detail). © Christian Marclay. In recent decades artists have progressively expanded the boundaries of art as
Gallery Ventures Limited Courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
inside flap, Artist, Title, date they have sought to engage with an increasingly pluralistic environment.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication Teaching, curating and understanding of art and visual culture are likewise no
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or transmitted in any form or by any means, 77–82 Whitechapel High Street longer grounded in traditional aesthetics but centred on significant ideas, topics
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and themes ranging from the everyday to the uncanny, the psychoanalytical to
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To order (UK and Europe) call [phone] the political.
ISBN 978-0-85488-187-1 (Whitechapel Gallery) or email [email protected]
ISBN 978-0-262-51568-9 (The MIT Press) Distributed to the book trade (UK and Europe only) The Documents of Contemporary Art series emerges from this context. Each
by Central Books
volume focuses on a specific subject or body of writing that has been of key
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the British Library influence in contemporary art internationally. Edited and introduced by a scholar,
The MIT Press
artist, critic or curator, each of these source books provides access to a plurality
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 55 Hayward Street
Cambridge, MA 02142 of voices and perspectives defining a significant theme or tendency.
Sound / edited by Caleb Kelly. MIT Press books may be purchased at special
p. cm. — (Documents of contemporary art) quantity discounts for business or sales promotional For over a century the Whitechapel Gallery has offered a public platform for
Includes bibliographical references and index. use. For information, please email special_sales@
art and ideas. In the same spirit, each guest editor represents a distinct yet diverse
ISBN 978-0-85488-187-1 (Whitechapel Gallery) — mitpress.mit.edu or write to Special Sales
ISBN 978-0-262-51568-9 (MIT Press : pbk. : alk. Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, approach – rather than one institutional position or school of thought – and has
paper) Cambridge, MA 02142
1. Sound in art. 2. Arts, Modern—20th century. conceived each volume to address not only a professional audience but all
3. Arts, Modern—21st century. I. Kelly, Caleb, 1972– interested readers.
NX650.S68S685 2011
709.04'07—dc22
2010030892
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Series Editor: Iwona Blazwick; Commissioning Editor: Ian Farr; Project Editor: Hannah Vaughan;
Editorial Advisory Board: Achim Borchardt-Hume, Roger Conover, Neil Cummings, Mark Francis,
David Jenkins, Kirsty Ogg, Gilane Tawadros
INTRODUCTION//012
CONCEPTS OF THE SONIC//020
NOISE AND SILENCE//088
THE LISTENER AND ACOUSTIC SPACE//108
BANDWAVES//144
ARTISTS AND SOUND//166
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES//224
BIBLIOGRAPHY//230
INDEx//233
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS//239
Artist, Title, date49
CONCEPTS OF THE SONIC Bernhard Leitner Acoustic Space, 1985//117
Luigi Russolo The Art of Noises, 1913//022 Emily Ann Thompson Sound, Modernity and History,
John Cage The Future of Music: Credo, 1937//023 2002//117
Allan Kaprow Right Living, 1987//026 Steven Shaviro Belinda Butcher, 1997//120
Douglas Kahn The Latest: Fluxus and Music, 1993//028 Bill Fontana Resoundings, c. 1999//123
Branden W. Joseph The Tower and the Line: Toward Jacques Rancière Metamorphosis of the Muses,
a Genealogy of Minimalism, 2007//043 2002//124
Ralph T. Coe Breaking through the Sound Barrier, Steven Connor Ears Have Walls: On Hearing Art,
1971//054 2005//129
Suzanne Delehanty Soundings, 1981//060 Helmut Draxler How Can We Perceive Sound as Art?,
Dan Lander Sound by Artists, 1990//063 2009//139
William Furlong Sound in Recent Art, 1994//067
Liam Gillick Some People Never Forget (The Use BANDWAVES
of Sound in Art of the Early Nineties), 1994//071 Germano Celant Artsound, 1981//146
Max Neuhaus Sound Art?, 2000//072 Michael Snow and Christian Marclay In Conversation,
Paul DeMarinis On Sonic Spaces, 1997//073 2000//148
W.J.T. Mitchell There Are No Visual Media, 2005//076 Dan Graham Sound is Material: Conversation with
Christoph Cox From Music to Sound: Being as Time Eric de Bruyn, 2004//152
in the Sonic Arts, 2006//080 Mike Kelley In Conversation with Carly Berwick,
2009//153
NOISE AND SILENCE Vito Acconci Words before Music, 2000//155
Jacques Attali Noise, 1976//090 Christian Marclay and Kim Gordon In Conversation,
Michel Serres Genesis, 1982//093 2003//157
Hermann Nitsch The Music of the O.M. Theatre, Martin Creed Blow and Suck: Conversation with
1985//096 Jérôme Sans, 2004//160
Kim Cascone Residualism, 1999//098 Martin Herbert Infinity’s Borders: Ryoji Ikeda,
Yasunao Tone Parasite/Noise, 2001//101 2009//162
Paul Virilio Silence on Trial, 2003//103
Paul Hegarty Noise/Music, 2007//104 ARTISTS AND SOUND
Marcel Duchamp Musical Sculpture, c. 1912–21//168
THE LISTENER AND ACOUSTIC SPACE Yves Klein On Monotone Symphony (c. 1947–48),
R. Murray Schafer The Soundscape, 1977//110 n.d.//168
Alvin Lucier Careful Listening is More Important Alexandra Munroe Spirit of Yes: Yoko Ono, 2000//169
than Making Sounds Happen, c. 1979//112 Michael Nyman Nam June Paik, Composer, 1982//171
Robert Morris Letter to John Cage, 1961//177
Mieko Shiomi On Works 1961–68, 1973//181
Len Lye Happy Moments, c. 1966//185
Harry Bertoia Why is Sound Left Outside?, 1987//186
Bruce Nauman Untitled, 1969//186
Chrissie Iles Cleaning the Mirror: Marina Abramovic,
1995//187
Max Neuhaus Listen (1966–76), 1990//190
Bill Viola Writings, 1976–85//192
Laurie Anderson Writings, 1977–79//194
Tom Johnson Kosugi and Suzuki: Stunning
by Coincidence, 1979//194
Christina Kubisch About My Installations, 1986//197
Michel Chion Video/Mouth: Gary Hill, 1994//200
Svetlana Alpers Rebecca Horn: Chorus of the Locusts I
and II (1991), 1996//202
Brandon LaBelle Other: Maryanne Amacher,
2006//204
David Toop Haunted Weather: Music, Silence
and Memory, 2004//206
Philip Dadson Sound Stories, 2000//210
Antonio Somaini Catching the Waves: Carsten
Nicolai’s Klangfiguren, 2006//211
Steve Roden Active Listening, 2005//216
Douglas Kahn Joyce Hinterding and Parasitic
Possibility, 2008//217
Seth Kim-Cohen Doug Aitken’s Sonic Pavilion,
2009//219
Angela Rosenberg Hearing and Seeing: Karin Sander,
2010//222
Caleb Kelly environment substantially and begins to change the terms of engagement with
Introduction//Sound in Art contemporary art.
Addressing these sonic shifts in the ambience of art, this anthology seeks to
draw attention to sound both in and around current art practice. Sound is now an
integral aspect of art, from installation to screen-based, performance-based and
At the centre of a large, dark gallery space sits a shed from which sound and light participatory practices, yet its presence is too often ignored. Aiding this neglect
emanate. Inside this structure is a theatre-like tableau, populated with messily is the view that sound is difficult to represent: one cannot look at sound in a
stacked records, record players, tables and chairs. A large opening at the front is book; the sound of a particular installation cannot be photographed and retained
treated by the audience like a cinema screen: they stand peering into it while as a document.3 Critics from a visual art background often have trouble describing
listening to an unfolding love story. In addition to this narrative there are records sound; their lexicon does not include an ongoing dialogue with audio concepts.
playing (although this is a simulation), and loudspeakers at times blast sound, Thus mainstream writing on art of recent decades has tended for the most part
while within the wider space the audio environment shifts phases and zones via to avoid critical discussion of sound. Yet in the last few years what once seemed
the surround speaker system. Opera for a Small Room (2005) by Janet Cardiff and like a subterranean murmur among a small number of artists and theorists
George Bures Miller, explores a diversity of registers of sound – initially concerned with sound has risen to the surface, coalescing into a body of discourse
radiophonic and operatic before turning into a rock concert, complete with stage with an unanticipated centrality for art of the present.
lighting and (invisible) performer.1 In a different art space, 33 rpm (2006) by Phil The belief that sound is a valid and critical factor in understanding
Dadson is constructed from numerous CD sized discs shaped into a large, three contemporary art marks a shift from what is still called visual art – a term that
metre-high circle. On each disc are rubbings taken from the surfaces of volcanic suggests art engages exclusively with sight and visuality. Can this shift be
rocks. The sonic component of this work is the imagined explosion of the massive examined so as to better interpret art created to engage senses other than sight?
volcanoes that spewed out these rocks as molten lava many years ago. Amidst Is this a change in what it is for something to be art or simply an opening out of
the silence of the work we find imagined noise.2 what was already there?
These two examples of recent artworks, one theatrically enacting sound, the Art has explicitly dealt with perceptual regimes outside the visual since the
other mutely evoking absent noise, mark an increased interest in sound as a 1960s, as witnessed in various manifestations of Minimalism and conceptualism,
central element in installations. In their divergent methods they convey some of with their experiential understanding of the relationship of audience to artwork.
the breadth of recent approaches to the use of sound in contemporary art. Take, for example, Michael Asher’s installation at the La Jolla Museum of Art in
On entering almost any contemporary gallery space we hear sound 1969. Asher altered the exhibition space with carpet and noise reduction
emanating from TV monitors, computers and projection spaces, or from rendering on the ceiling. This combination of surfaces had the effect of deadening
headphones handed out to gallery visitors, not to mention the echoes of voices the acoustics of the space, reducing the typical reverberation or echo of the room,
and footsteps. The gallery is not the hushed space it was once purported to be in which he introduced one sound: a simple, electronically generated tone. This
but rather is filled with sounds that can range from noisy to quiet, from gentle work focuses on the experience of the installation by its audience, who cannot
to aggressive, from overlapping to discrepant or disruptive. This is not help but notice the changed acoustics of the room and the electronic sound
unproblematic, as the hard, square surfaces of the traditional gallery do not within the space.4 Its photographic documentation, of course, pictures an empty
necessarily manage sound well; it echoes around the space, bumping into gallery. We cannot comprehend the experiential nature of the work by viewing
sound that has crept out of adjoining galleries, and in the process it interferes the images. In a similar way the huge rolls and stacks of felt in Joseph Beuys’ Fond
and merges with it. However, many galleries are currently working out series of 1979 engage the senses by deadening the acoustics of any room in which
strategies to deal with the increased volume within their confines. Tate Modern they are installed, completely lining the walls. One cannot enter the space
in London, converted from a former power station, has embraced a crowded without being aware of the hushed acoustic environment.
and often noisy audience in its vast central Turbine Hall, who experience this A key concept underpinning this anthology is that sound is immanent to
public area as a playful and interactive place. The way it is used by all age contemporary art. It is already there, because all audiences, except for those who
groups including children has raised the ‘noise floor’ of the building’s cannot hear, attend to artworks with not only their eyes but their ears as
12//INTRODUCTION Kelly//Sound in Art//13
receptors; often they may not be open or attentive, but every audience member historians and critics think there is no such thing as sound art as a genre or
is continually processing information gathered through the sense of hearing. It movement. Max Neuhaus, a prominent exponent of sound installation, argues
has often been remarked that we cannot close our ears. that ‘in art, the medium is not often the message … Much of what has been called
In the years since the start of this century there has been an increased “sound art” has not much to do with either sound or art.’9 William Furlong, artist
theoretical interest in sound in culture – what Jim Drobnick has termed the ‘sonic and founder of Audio Arts, begins his discussion of sound in recent art by stating
turn’.5 As Michael Bull and Les Back have noted, ‘the experience of everyday life that ‘sound has never become a discrete area of art practice.’10 This anthology
is increasingly mediated by a multitude of mechanically reproduced sounds … In argues for sound's importance within contemporary art itself. In doing so it will
parallel to this, cities are noisier than they ever were in the past.’6 Given this not focus primarily on ‘sound art’ – although it includes all the relevant discussions
increased awareness, how are we to re-listen to the sound world around us, and of this term. Rather, the focus is on ‘listening’ to the visual arts. Once we begin to
how do we situate our bodies and our everyday through these discourses?7 Many listen we find that contemporary art is a rather rowdy area of practice.
of these issues are addressed by artists who direct us to rethink how we come to The first section, Concepts of the Sonic, assembles texts that situate and
know the world through listening. A productive approach to sound making theorize sound in relation to art practice. It begins with manifestos by two of the
derives from the physical nature of sound, best described as ‘sound as most referenced figures in the field of an expanded musical practice, Luigi
phenomenon’. The remarkable nature, or phenomenon, of sound is framed Russolo and John Cage. Due to the close ties sound has with music, it is not
within a range of varying practices including Alvin Lucier’s I am Sitting in a Room possible to discuss sound in art without looking to music, and both Russolo and
(1969), Laurie Anderson’s Handphone Table (1978) and Ryoji Ikeda’s +/- (1996). Cage exerted a major influence on both music and art. Russolo, a member of the
Another approach is straightforwardly to draw our attention to listening itself. Italian Futurists, argued in 1913 for an ‘art of noises’ as a celebration of the
This has often occurred in what have come to be known as ‘sound walks’. Based modern city, drawing our attention to the simple fact that in his era industrial
in the expanded sense of listening espoused by John Cage, and initially pioneered noise was born. He called for the opening of music to all sound through the
by Max Neuhaus, this practice involves directing the audience around a inclusion of the non-musical noises of the city. The use of noise is common in
geographical environment or artificial sound spaces, drawing their attention to contemporary art practices that engage sound and the very possibility of being
the multifarious sounds they come across. This is a very productive area and able to hear noise as sonically interesting has had a major impact on artistic
numerous artists have employed this strategy in diverse forms, including Janet practice after Russolo.
Cardiff, Akio Suzuki and Yasunao Tone. The second text is by the composer Cage, whose practices and concepts
Another way in which audio has gained a foothold in our recent understanding included chance operations, indeterminacy, the impossibility of silence, the
of art practice is via numerous large-scale art exhibitions focused on sound, such incorporation of all sound into music, and the idea of listening to sound in itself.
as ‘Volume: Bed of Sound’ (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2000), ‘Sonic His presence pervades numerous texts in this anthology and his importance
Boom’ (Hayward Gallery, London, 2000), ‘Bitstreams’ (Whitney Museum of cannot be overstated, yet it has only been in the past few years that his influence
American Art, New York, 2001), ‘Art>Music’ (Museum of Contemporary Art, has been explored in depth, especially in the art world.11
Sydney, 2001), ‘Sonic Process’ (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2002), ‘Sounding Cage’s legacy is in part due to the wide range of practitioners with whom he
Spaces’ (I.C.C., Tokyo, 2003), ‘Her Noise’ (South London Gallery, London, 2005), had close associations, including his partner the choreographer Merce
and ‘See This Sound’ (Lentos Art Museum, Linz, 2009). In addition a number of Cunningham, composers such as Morton Feldman and David Tudor, artists such
recent publications have attempted to address ‘sound art’ as a concept.8 Within as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and the ‘intermedia’ artists who created
these texts sound art has been understood as a movement or a genre, distinct Fluxus actions and Happenings.
from other forms. The term itself is confusing, as it is used to describe gallery- Another significant figure is the French composer and musicologist Pierre
based works as well as experimental music practices. However, rather than a Schaeffer (1910–95), whose writings have only recently been translated into
movement or genre, ‘sound art’ simply describes a medium, much like ‘oil English and for copyright reasons are unavailable for inclusion here. Schaeffer
painting’. Terms such as oil painting do not provide any information of the focused on music produced from recordings, which were edited in such a way as
content of the artwork, as they simply describe what it was created from. This to remove the sounds from their referents (the objects that created the sound).
misunderstanding is highly problematic and the reason why many artists, art He also worked on compositions that involve the use of everyday sounds, such as
14//INTRODUCTION Kelly//Sound in Art//15
those made by trains, for example. His music, known as musique concrète, has in much recent practice. The Listener and Acoustic Space opens with R. Murray
had a great influence on many contemporary sound forms (including sampling Schafer’s definition of the ‘soundscape’ as ‘any acoustic field of study’.15 These
based genres such as Hip-Hop). fields include musical compositions, radio programmes and acoustic
The second section explores the dimensions of Noise and Silence. Noise has environments. He argues that the soundscape is continually filled with ‘an
been the focus of a number of theoretical texts that find joy in its complexities. indiscriminate and imperialistic spread of more and larger sounds in every
Irregular vibrations of the air constitute noise, whilst regular vibrations produce corner of man’s life’.16 Schafer’s ecology of sound has influenced numerous sound
tones. The complex, irregular nature of noise overloads the listener’s capability makers (Francisco López, Aki Onda, Chris Watson, Hildegard Westerkamp), who
to understand sound, presenting a chaotic and unstable set of relationships that have sought out environmental sounds, both ‘natural’ and ‘urban’, in a radically
engulfs the order and simplicity of pitched sound. For Michel Serres, perhaps changing soundscape. Using Schafer’s insights as a starting point, Emily Ann
more than any other theorist, noise forms the backdrop to all communication, Thompson discusses modernist acoustics and mastery of the audition of sound.
the air we breathe and the sea from which all life emerges: ‘We breathe The character of sound and its acoustic properties is also addressed by the
background noise, the taut and tenuous agitation at the bottom of the world, composer Alvin Lucier, who has been widely influential on artists working with
through all our pores and papillae; we collect within us the noise of organization, sound phenomena. Lucier argues for an attention to the flow of sound through
a hot flame and a dance of integers …’12 In noise there is a plenitude of form, from space, rather than to factors such as tone, harmony and melody that are
which all possible forms can arise, hence for Serres it is a source of celebration traditionally privileged in Western art music.
rather than the wish for its abatement. A continuing concern to curators of sound in contemporary art is the space of
Volume, as distinct from noise, draws our attention to our bodies, alerting us to the gallery itself. Brian O’Doherty, in his influential essay ‘Inside the White Cube’,
the phenomena of sound entering the body, slipping into our mouths, our nostrils wrote that the history of modernism was framed by the exhibition space: ‘An
and our ears. It gets inside us, and when played loudly, it massages and rumbles image comes to mind of a white, ideal space that, more than any single picture,
our internal organs. Steven Shaviro explains the effect this has during a performance may be the archetypal image of twentieth-century art.’17 The stark white cube is
by the infamously loud rock band My Bloody Valentine: ‘This isn’t just a case of cleared and cleaned of anything that might detract from the contemplation of
being overwhelmed by the sublime. You can’t stand it and you can’t see beyond it; visual art, yet this space is not at all conducive to the contemplation of sound
but for that very reason you get used to it after a while, and you never want it to within art. The hard, flat surfaces cause sound to reverberate throughout the
end.’13 The aural ‘spectacle’ of volume is never so great as when played to a stadium space, detracting from the experience of the work itself. Steven Connor alerts us
filled with thousands of fans. Scores of people attend live gigs performed above to the issue of the gallery’s bent toward visual perception and the logic of the
the volume that causes hearing damage, a reminder that incredible volume is not direct line of sight. Sound does not adhere to the line of sight: it moves around
a fringe practice but is at the centre of mainstream culture. walls and bounces through openings and between spaces, invading adjoining
Kim Cascone looks for the detritus of recording production, finding in offcuts rooms. It does not follow safe and contained visuality, causing trouble in the
a wealth of material ripe for exploitation. He attends to background noise, the museum, where quiet contemplation of art is expected. We cannot help, for
underbelly of recording, focusing on the almost silent ‘noise floor’. These are example, but be aware of loud music emanating from the Douglas Gordon's
some of the hitherto ignored territories that have been exposed and used by installation Feature Film (1998) while trying to listen to the dialogue within
artists working with sound or experimenting with new musical tools. Pierre Huyghe’s The Third Memory (1999).18
While most writers in this field espouse the virtues of sound, a few are not so If the white cube is the archetype of twentieth-century art display, then what
ready to embrace the sonic in art. Paul Virilio, for example, argues that silence would be the archetype of twenty-first century exhibition space? It would need
has been put on trial and that noise in art is ‘in the process of lastingly polluting to be able to handle new media – large projections, lighting environments and, of
our representations’.14 Here the desire for quiet and peaceful contemplation goes course, sound – and still be available for the display of more traditional artefacts.
hand in hand with the belief that art should be separate from daily life: the ‘noise’ Internationally the black cube is becoming more common – a space that is
of the everyday somehow lessens the experience of art, ‘polluting’ it. darkened for projection and acoustically damped for sound. Perhaps we will see
After these discussions of noise our attention is directed to the spatiality of the expansion of purpose-built gallery environments dedicated to the needs and
sound. How we hear sound in different spatial conditions is an important factor specificities of contemporary art, instead of the ‘one-size fits-all’ white gallery.
16//INTRODUCTION Kelly//Sound in Art//17
Of course there is not a straightforward answer to the exhibition of sound in 1 Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Opera for a Small Room (2005), included in the exhibition
the gallery. Helmut Draxler asserts that the conventions of the other arts cannot ‘The Dwelling’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2009).
simply be transferred to the gallery: we do not recreate a cinema environment to 2 Phil Dadson, 33 rpm (rock records) (2006), included in the exhibition ‘Mistral’, at Artspace,
display video art and thus we should not need to recreate a concert hall in the Sydney (2006).
gallery to display sound works.19 This argument is a little overstated as it connects 3 Sound can be recorded, but the recording of audio elements of art does not function in the same
video too closely to cinema and sound too closely to music. That said, the gallery way as photographs have come to be employed, as stand-ins for the art objects themselves.
can learn from other arts practices, especially cinema, as the contemporary 4 For a further discussion of this work see Kirsi Peltomäki, Situation Aesthetics: The Work of Michael
cinematic space has been created to house often loud and dramatic sound. The Asher (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2010) 22–6.
cinema is dampened with carpet and soft chairs and rendered so as to hold sound 5 Jim Drobnick, ‘Listening Awry’, in Aural Cultures: Sound Art (Banff: YYZ Books, 2004) 10, note 7.
within its confines. Set against this practice, contemporary exhibition spaces The term ‘sonic turn’ is the audio version of W.J.T Mitchell’s ‘pictorial turn’. See W.J.T Mitchell,
hold onto their open, white and well lit space, not ready for such dramatic ‘The Pictorial Turn’, Artforum (March 1992) 89–94.
changes to their conception of the perfect space for exhibition. 6 Michael Bull and Les Back, ‘Introduction: Into Sound’, in The Auditory Culture Reader (Oxford:
The fourth section, Bandwaves, contains a discussion of the relationship of Berg, 2003) 1.
music to art. Sound does not belong to any one arts discipline, it turns up in 7 Other texts that have sought to fill the gap in academic discussion of sound include: Veit Erlmann,
music, theatre, literature, dance, film, architecture and art. However, historically Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity (Oxford: Berg, 2004); Christoph Cox
music has made the strongest claim to sound’s ownership, not least in John and Daniel Warner, ‘Introduction: Music and the New Audio Culture’, in Audio Culture: Readings
Cage’s notion that all sound can be, or is, music. Therefore any discussion of in Modern Music (New York and London: Continuum, 2004).
sound within contemporary art cannot exclude music, and many of the texts 8 cf. Brandon LaBelle’s Background Noise and Alan Licht’s Sound Art (see bibliography).
within this anthology directly address music practices. Here artists’ relationships 9 Max Neuhaus, ‘Sound Art?’ (2000), reprinted in this volume, 72–3.
to music are surveyed, making clear the obvious: that many artists have a close 10 William Furlong, ‘Sound in Recent Art’, reprinted in this volume, 67–70.
connection with music; they listen to it in their studios, they make it, they engage 11 Ina Bloom, ‘Signal to Noise’, Artforum (February 2010) 171–5.
with it through popular culture, they connect with the rock ethos, and they are 12 Michel Serres, Genesis (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1995) 7.
fans. Music and contemporary art are directly and inextricably linked in this way. 13 Steven Shaviro, ‘Bilinda Butcher’ (1997), extract reprinted in this volume, 120–23.
Some artists are directly connected to music through their participation in ‘art 14 Paul Virilio, ‘Silence on Trial’ (2003); extract reprinted in this volume, 103–4.
school bands’ (for example, Kim Gordon, Dan Graham, Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, 15 R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (1977) 7;
Martin Creed), while for Vito Acconci, it is a ‘passive spectator sport’.20 Christian extract reprinted in this volume, 110–12.
Marclay is a special case. His works in music and art are inextricably linked, with 16 Ibid., 3.
each side feeding the other. Here two of his recorded conversations, one with the 17 Brian O’Doherty, 'Inside the White Cube' (1976), in Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the
artist and filmmaker Michael Snow, and the other with Sonic Youth musician and Gallery Space (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) 14.
vocalist Kim Gordon, shed light on his connection to both worlds. 18 This juxtaposition of works occurred at the exhibition ‘Centre Pompidou: Video Art 1965–2005’,
The final section, Artists and Sound, surveys the diversity of specific artistic Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2006–7).
practices that have emerged over the last century in response to the developments 19 Helmut Draxler, ‘How can we Perceive Sound as Art?’, in See This Sound (Linz: Kunsthalle/Cologne:
explored in the previous sections, and demonstrates why sound in art can never Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2009) 26; extract reprinted in this volume, 139–43.
be reduced to a movement or genre. An objective of this volume is to heighten 20 Vito Acconci, ‘Words before Music’ (manuscript, 2000); included in this volume, 155–6.
the art community’s awareness of sound in art, with the hope that both art
institutions and audiences – as we become increasingly attuned to the new
aesthetics of listening – can fully engage with and participate in the sonic turn
that is transforming the practice of numerous artists around the world.
18//INTRODUCTION Kelly//Sound in Art//19