Sound Art as a Continuum Between Musical & Fine Art Practices
J . R, Abstract is text explores sound art’s relationship to (experimental) music and fine art, by considering its practices, both historical and contemporary. First, a brief history of its origins in both fields is given with a view to providing context. Secondly, the difficulty of its definition is discussed and a broad definition is proposed in light of the aforementioned historical context. irdly, the examination of a number of cases between sound art’s advent and the present forms part of an argument for the thesis that sound art is a continuous spectrum between, and formed by the intersection of, practices in music and fine art.
Contents Abstract
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Introduction
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A Brief Back-Story to Sound & Installation . Origins: Conceptual Art . ‘Extra-Musical’ Matter in Experimental Music . e Influence of Minimalist Art . e Use of Sound in Installation Art
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Defining ‘Sound Art’ . A Battleground of Music & Art? . A Prototypal Definition
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Reconciling Different Approaches to Sound Art . Drawing the Line: Practitional Differences . e Site-Specificity Spectrum . Erasing the Line: Underlying Mutualities . An Interdisciplinary Continuum (Concluding Remarks)
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List of References Bibliography Audio-Visual Resources, Works of Art & Exhibitions
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Introduction Sound art is a term which has been given multiple, and sometimes very different, definitions by various parties. e reason that I chose it as a subject for this study is partly because of a noticeable trend in practitional divide between sound artists who are rooted in the gallery world of fine-art, and those whose roots lie in musical practice. Visual artist Susan Philipsz’s Turner Prize–winning sound installation of traditional folk songs under river bridges seemed to me a far cry from the trend in much musicrooted sound installation towards noise and generative methods [Polli 1998: 108]. In the same year, for instance, the musician David Byrne exhibited Playing the Building at the Roundhouse (London), an intricate installation connected to a variety of the buildings’s architectural structures which mechanically enables visitors to play the venue itself as a musical instrument. Noticing this difference prompted a deeper investigation into practitional and aesthetic trends in both ‘art-informed’ and ‘music-informed’ approaches to sound art, which revealed that not only are differences in approach widespread, but they are sometimes a consequence of the belief by theorists that there is, or should be, a line that can be found between the two [Coulter-Smith: 1.2]. However, sound art has roots in both fields, and therefore could be seen to be a bridge which draws them, rather than a territory to be divided. By reviewing the roots that sound art’s aesthetics has in experimental music and twentieth-century fine art (particularly the history of installation art) and assessing some examples of contemporary practice on those terms, my aim is to, first, provide a definition of sound art which encompasses all practice which could be considered sound art by forming a union of the current differing definitions. To do so, I have referred to texts by both musical and fine-art theorists and practitioners. Secondly, to investigate the differences in practice between sound artists of the music and visual types, and to explain how these might be reconciled by a better understanding of the common aesthetics which underpin both.
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Chapter 1
A Brief Back-Story to Sound & Installation . Origins: Conceptual Art e use of sound in fine art is related to (but by no means bound to) the practice of installation art—a term which has been used since c.1965 for art works designed to transform a viewer’s perception of space [OED, 2010]. Its practice came to prominence in the 1970s, but its roots can be identified with conceptual art, which in turn initially stemmed from early twentieth-century sculpture, and an effort by the (then) avant-garde to shi focus away from physical cra and towards intellectual interpretation [Camfield 1989: 84]. Duchamp’s iconic Fountain () is still considered by many to be a watershed moment in this movement, and even as the most influential art work of the twentieth century [BBC 2004]. Not only did Fountain subvert existing institutional expectations about ‘art’ (by contending that it is for an artist to decide what constitutes art) in a characteristically Dadaist manner [Camfield 1989: 70], but as a piece of found art 1 it asserted an abandonment of physical cra from the artistic process. ese ethics— the liberation from any pre-existent canonical form, and emphasis on conceptualization over cra—are common roots of virtually all early sub-movements born of conceptual art’s advent. It has even been suggested that, in severing ‘the traditional link between the artist’s labour and the merit of the work’, Duchamp single-handedly invented conceptual art [Hensher 2008].2 I begin with Fountain, first, because its influence on the broad conceptual movement provides partial insight into installation art’s development (from its dissolution of the art/non-art barrier), secondly because the rejection of skill’s (or cra’s) merit is key to understanding some aesthetic differences in fine-artists’ approach to using sound to that of musicians,3 and thirdly because of the influence of Duchamp’s work on John Cage.
. ‘Extra-Musical’ Matter in Experimental Music Clichéd though it may be to begin a passage on sound art with a sweeping statement on the enormity of John Cage’s role in its development, it is necessary in this case, because his influence reached far beyond musical practice and into virtually all art forms, not least fine art. Cage’s relationship with the visual arts was multidirectional: he both influenced, and was influenced by, artists from a variety of fields. Two are of particular Duchamp used the term ‘readymade’ for this type of found art. e relevance of Duchamp’s work to artists in the s may seem a temporal leap. However, Duchamp’s Fountain was lost aer its initial exhibition, and it was several decades later between – that he authorized replicas based on photographs of the original. 3 In this text the word musician will be, unless otherwise indicated, inclusive of those sound artists who may not necessarily call themselves musicians but whose approach one can at least safely assume is informed by a background of musical practice or theory. 1 2
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importance to this study. Duchamp’s found-art concept is a direct analogue of Cage’s found sound, its engagement with the environment influencing Cage’s, and its destruction of the art/non-art boundary a parallel of his reminder that it is sound from which music is made—or at least, that sound is the single component which is common to all music. Cage’s experimental ethos can be distinguished from contemporary ‘nonexperimental’ musical composition 4 in terms of its use of chance and extra-musical matter. Nyman says that ‘the classical system and its contemporary continuation […] is essentially a system of priorities which sets up ordered relationships between its components , and where one thing is defined in terms of its opposite Nyman, , p.
Whereas Cage advocated a relinquish of control, equally balancing sound with noise and silence, and order with randomness; Nyman identifies the need to organise relationships as being key to the approach which held European avant-garde composers back from the experimental realm: Stockhausen (cited ibid., p.) insisted that using ‘extra-musical’ sound matter is acceptable only if one can ‘integrate it and ultimately create some kind of harmony and balance […] not just expose them and see what happens’. Relevant to sound art is Cage’s interest in a performance’s physical space, and particularly the advantage spatial separation of players he says has, of ‘[allowing] the sounds to issue from their own [centres] and interpenetrate which is not obstructed by the conventions’ of European musical history [Cage 1961(): 184]. Cage’s interest in Abstract Expressionist painting 5 exposed him to a number of contemporary artists. ough he later influenced Minimalist (visual) art, Cage has made it clear that it was the art which at least partially informed 4'33" (), and that his most celebrated piece was particularly insipired by Rauschenberg’s series of canvases entitled White Paintings () [Cage 1978: 98–99], a series of uniformly white canvases presented in four groups (of one panel, three, four and seven panels). Rauschenberg’s sound bite ‘a canvas is never empty’ [Rauschenberg 1951] supposedly prompted Cage to write 4'33". Having its origin in visual art provides insight into why the Cagean use of silence and environmental noise is so readily adaptable via analogy into new media art: it was a pluralist aesthetic to begin with. One of the most striking things about the White Paintings in relation to Cage’s piece is the three-panel group of canvases: three white surfaces in a row, divided only by the lines created by their separateness. It is—or if not, arguably as close as one could get to—a visual transliteration of 4'33"—but rather, the converse is the case: the music is like a sonic transliteration of the painting. Constructed in three movements, and making use of the musical instruction ‘tacet’, 4'33" imports the elements of chance and extra-musical environmental awareness into a musical form, and overturns the musical object to insert the listener’s ‘presence’, not only in space, but in the moment. is contradiction of traditional expectation, poses a question about the medium of music,6 reflecting Rauschenberg’s direction of the viewer towards the medium of painted canvas. Musique Concrète’s role is equally important in drawing attention to medium (sound) rather than gesture (musical construct), and the rise to a widespread use of ‘extraWhich Nyman refers to as the ‘avant-garde’, distinct from experimental music Which he also practised. 6 As do, for instance his works for prepared piano. 4 5
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musical’ sound matter. Pierre Schaeffer established the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète in , using recording technology for both acoustical research and as a means of composition. Unlike an acoustic sound, a recorded sound could be objectified and scrutinized, magnified, repeated, re-recorded, and played back so as to hear all its hidden and potential details, uncovering the inner dynamic nestled inside every instant or particle of sound. LaBelle, , p.
Schaeffer saw manipulation of recorded sound as a compositional aesthetic, since all music is the result of some kind of empirical sonic manipulation. e change in medium and level of precision was not where the major aesthetic shi lay: his interest was in the ‘acousmatic’ separation of (what he called) the sonorous object from its source [Schaeffer 1966: 81]. Schaeffer saw its ability to invoke reduced listening,7 as a pure sound detached from causal context. ough sharing a cause in the ‘liberation of sound’ with Cage, Musique Concrète practitioners operated differently. Whereas Cage’s work brings into foreground the ‘material presence of the musical moment […] the process at work […] to democratize sound’ [LaBelle 2006: 32], Concrète methods abolish the sense of musical ‘moment’ by reorganizing sound to defy the laws of real time, and by concealing the source/process from the listener invoke a reduced ‘ear’ removed from the listener’s subjectivity and contextual awareness—and thus a denial of their presence in the work. To achieve this suppression of context, and reduction of external references, Schaeffer favoured presenting music in a darkened room, with speakers surrounding the audience [ibid.: 30]. Unlike Cage’s immersion, this instead immerses the audience not in the literal context of space but by an abstract environment where sound’s materiality envelops the listener. Both cultivate sound’s ability to build presence through cra and process—but whereas Cage emphasises real life and found space, Schaeffer on the other hand engages with the ‘grain’ of sound diffusing in space, creating its own narrative in an environment built solely from sonorous events. us alongside sound’s use as a plane outside musical gesture, experimental music marks the relationship with its surrounding environment (whether referential to context or not) as important in its perception [Clemons 1995: 24].
. e Influence of Minimalist Art e medium 8 of installation is where experimental music and fine art intersect most predominantly, and thus of primary interest to this study. e Dadaist branch of Conceptual art’s roots informed an artistic approach embracing wider examination of articles of life and the environmental envelope, in ‘pursuit of a more intense engagement with the outside world and everyday life’ [Kwon 1997: 43]. Suderburg [2000: 2] describes installation practice as collectively engaging ‘aural, spatial, visual and environmental Reduced listening is listening mode distinct from both causal listening, in which we react to sound by identifying its a source, and semantic listening in which we listen to a particular parametric order which codifies some kind of message or semiotic (such as spoken language)—it is instead a mode of listening focused on purely sonic qualities [Chion 1994: 25–30]. 8 Or perhaps, more appropriately, ‘media approach’, since it encompasses a broad range of media. 7
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planes of perception and interpretation’. is omni-sensory approach, in which a work’s situation is incorporated into the piece itself is owed not only to conceptual art’s modal expansionism but also another visual movement which shares many theoretical attributes with Cagean aesthetics 9—Minimalism.10 Indeed, many Minimalist artists were influenced by Cage, whose embrace of the notions of found sound and aleatory reflected a departure of emphasis from the artist’s execution, to the conditions of a work’s reception: Minimal sculpture launched an attack on the prestige of the artist and artwork, granting that prestige instead to the situated spectator, whose selfconscious perception of the Minimal object in relation to the site of its installation produced the work’s meaning. Crimp, 1993, pp.–
Buren claims that this was an opposition to Modernism’s ideal that ‘the art object in and of itself ’ has an absolute meaning 11 (Buren 1971, cited in Suderburg, 2000, p.). However, Meyer argues that an indirect source of this displacement from work to frame is Modernist reflexivity—a displacement of the object of reflection from the work itself to the medium of a work, and its tactility. Minimalism displaced this by yet another degree: from the medium to its space12 [Meyer 2000: 26–27]. is implicitly suggests that rather than opposing Modernism, Minimalism was an evolution—at least in terms of the resulting phenomenology of a gestalt formed by ‘presence’ of work and reader in an integral frame: Minimal objects redirected consciousness back on itself and the real-world conditions that ground consciousness. e coordinates of perception were established as existing not only between spectator and the work but among spectator, artwork, and the place inhabited by both. Crimp, 1993, p.
is led to the idea of art as a spectatorial experience, which unfolds in both space and time, and here lies Minimalism’s part as another aesthetic precursor of installation art.
. e Use of Sound in Installation Art Installation art developed into a broad umbrella for a variety of practices.13 e conditions implied by an installation piece as an unfolding spectatorial experience lend themselves to sound, but the aesthetic reasons for, and the manner of, its use is informed
Minimalist art’s relationship with Cagean aesthetics will be discussed shortly. ‘Minimalism’ in this text refers to the movement in the visual arts, not to be confused with the musical movement of the same name. For clarity’s sake, the latter will be referred to as ‘musical Minimalism’. 11 at is, a temporally and spatially fixed meaning. 12 at is, instead of the ‘once-removed’ emphasis on poietic qualities of a work as a self contained object, the emphasis was removed a further step, to a more general level of abstraction: the perceptual conditions of its display as a piece of art. 13 Of many different types, but in using space as part of the medium, all ultimately informed by the aforementioned ethics which led to their advent. 9
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by the underlying ethics of installation.14 is is not to say, however, that installation art has not been influenced by musical aesthetics, which it most certainly has. Cage’s ambition to reflect on music’s function and materials is analogous to the selfconsciousness of conceptual art: transcending traditional modes of self-expression, and enforcing a simultaneity of creation and reaction which elicits a reflection on medium and situation (in Cage’s case, respectively sound and music). His take on the artist as not a literal maker but a decision-maker fore-grounded process. Alongside abstract expressionists’ use of dynamic process and spontaneity15 it prefigured the Fluxus movement and the closely related Happenings and Environments, all seeking to blur lines between art and life to a point of indistinguishability. Happenings involve staging actions or events, scripted or unscripted, which ‘collapse the art object as a refined aesthetic onto the spaces of everyday life’, and Environments construct whole artistic scenes where random material assembles ‘in such a way as to become art’, the latter oen providing a backdrop for the former [LaBelle 2006]. Where Fluxus differs is in its ‘rejection of the physicality and gestural vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism’ favouring instead ‘attentiveness to “insignificant” phenomena’ [Haskell 1985: 49]. is combination of ‘theatricality’ and environment celebrated art as an immersive experience. is naturally lends itself to the use of sound, for two reasons: first, sound’s inherent temporality enforces continuous experience rather than static observation. Secondly, Kahn notes that ‘immersion in noise is guaranteed by the ease through which so much can be perceived through [noise]’ [Kahn 2001: 31].16 Sound’s explicit temporality can also transport environments between disjoint places. Recorded sound brings an ongoing sensory element of some environment into a different location, capturing and recreating a spatially enveloping narrative, rather than merely the snapshot which a static environment provides, or that which a ‘performance’ of a dynamic (but intra-environmental) object may [Rimbaud 2001: 66]. Distinction from the latter is aided by sound’s omnidirectional17 propagation through space. Diffracting around barriers which light cannot allows it to both surround the viewer/audience, and to transmit uninterrupted [Slouka 1999: 41]—eyes are drawn between distinct places, but the ears will hear sound regardless, and thus the perception (i.e. listening) becomes a passive internalization as opposed to an active physical choice of sensual focus. Finally, sound really is tactile—it is a matter wave comprised of vibrations of real mass, transmitted to us in a way we feel physically 18 —providing a means of directly anchoring the viewer/audience’s immersion. is encapsulation and/or transformation of narrative 19 is related to sound’s use in film, which is worth discussing in relation to video installations, though the relationship between video installation art and cinema is a subject which is not the immediate focus of this study.20 I will, however, be discussing the relationship between video installation and sound art in the following chapter. Hence the importance of the brief history given above. Such as Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. 16 Noise of course being the sonic component of Haskell’s ‘insignificant phenomena’. 17 Not isotropic or uniform, but usually omnidirectional via acoustic reflection. 18 Not only in the sense that the eardrum feels vibrations, but also through the ‘listening body’. 19 at is, an environment with a time-base. 20 It suffices to say that ‘to many filmmakers, sound is merely an adjunct to plot and [cinematography], and has only a supportive role’ [Gibbs 2007: 8]. 14 15
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While installation art’s engagement with medium, environment, immersion and presence provides context for its aesthetic plane, sound art can take such a wide variety of forms that it becomes debatable whether all of them are ‘installations’. at is to say, a sound installation is a subcategory of sound art, but it is unclear whether it is a strict subcategory, or simply accounts for all sound art. It is however, reasonable to say that all sound art has an aesthetic link with installation. Sound’s temporal explicitness and its dispersion in space link it to immersion. If it is isolated (by, for instance, headphones) it is still creating an artificial ‘environment’ within the binaural perceptual sphere of the listener. For these reasons, I shall discuss from hereon sound art in terms of its roots in experimental music and installation art.
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Chapter 2
Defining ‘Sound Art’ . A Battleground of Music & Art? e term sound art has been commonly used since the 1990s, though (as is oen the case) many of its pioneers are wary of the label itself 21 [Licht 2007: 11]. It is difficult to pin down one presiding definition due to conflicting ideas of what it should encompass. It is not a term that for a particular movement, but rather an existing set of practices whose early practitioners felt (just as many contemporary practitioners still feel) no need to prescribe a new name, each seeing it as an extension of their established field. Having roots in music and fine art, and practitioners coming (typically separately) from both, sound art is to various degrees regarded as a ‘battleground’ between the two —‘a prize to be fought over’ [Gibbs 2007: 43]—certainly by practitioners who see themselves as one or the other but not both. ough it may seem a minutia, it is important to distinguish how we can apply the terms sound art and sound artist, because practice of the former does not elicit the latter as label if it is not their assumed primary medium. A musician can practice sound art, as can a visual artist, and arts education in general presents the two fields as distinct practices. ough some practitioners regard themselves as straddling both or rooted in-between, and embrace the label sound artist (Shaefer, cited in ibid., p.), there are many identifying themselves as either musicians or artists, with sound art as part of their work (Neuhaus, cited in Licht, 2007, p.). So whilst sound art is a label we can prescribe to existing works within each field, sound artist is one which is self-adopted. is is relevant because sound art’s own pre-existence as various extensions of other fields is one reason that it has conflicting definitions: ‘it originates elsewhere, grows as part of a more established [field] and, aer acquiring an identity of its own, now demands to be recognised independently’ [Gibbs 2007: 8]. Kahn [2001: 6] argues that ‘sound art’ should apply to work with sound matter as, if not the foremost, then at the very least a key, feature. is excludes works whose creators do not consider sound as a core element. While Kahn’s point seems reasonable, he avoids defining precisely what is meant by ‘core’ or ‘primary’ elements. Surely the degree of importance of any component of a piece of art work varies on a continuous scale, rather than being subjected by such discrete labels, from the point of view of both artist and audience. Gibbs [2007], who uses ‘sonic art’ and ‘sound art’ interchangeably,22 supports Kahn’s argument with slightly more useful criteria: that sound art should ‘actively emit sound or at least have a sound (which itself is active) as its conceptual basis […] [and be a work which] seeks to to communicate with its audience through sound.’ ough was allegedly first used by Dan Lander in the mid-1980s [Licht 2007: 11]. Despite the semantic differences between the words sound, implying sound matter itself or the result of its creation, and sonic, implying the transmission and perception of sound [OED 2010], the two terms have come to—at least for the time being, and arguably the foreseeable future—represent a shared idiom. 21 22
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Gibbs, , p.
ese criteria are helpful, but alone not enough to distinguish sound art from any type of music—including traditional forms.23 Licht, in contrast to Gibbs, says that sound art belongs in an exhibition situation rather than a performance situation—that is, I would maintain, a necessary correlative in defining the term Licht, , p.
e phrase ‘exhibition situation’ in itself is riddled with ambiguity, but placing it in contrast (dare I say, even diametric opposition) to performance is where Licht’s statement fails to acknowledge the arts’ current climate. e fine arts have evolved to inhabit mediums outside the arena of a physical exhibition: distributed art, internet art [Reddell 2003], and of course performance art, to name but a few. e aforementioned (q.v. §1.4) Environments, Happenings and Fluxus works all defied the idea that exhibition and performance are mutually exclusive practices. e definition that Licht provides is that the work falls into one of the following categories: 1. An installed sound environment that is defined by the space (and/or acoustic space) rather than time and can be exhibited [in the same way that] a visual artwork would be. 2. A visual artwork with sound-producing function, e.g. sound sculpture.24 3. Sound by visual artists that serves an extension of the artist’s particular aesthetic, generally expresses in other media. Licht, 2007, pp.–
Again, in the first category he appears to regard ‘work defined by space’ as being something distinct from ‘work defined by time’ when there are, as I have mentioned, cases of overlap, particularly when the perception of space changes over time, or vice versa.25 Whilst Licht does admit that pieces comprising sound alone can be considered sound art (in his third category), he does so only on the condition that it is created by a visual artist. is seems an unjustifiably partisan approach, as ‘the [sonic] extension of the artist’s particular aesthetic’ could theoretically be analogous to the aesthetic of a piece of sound art created by a musician. He acknowledges sound as a central component, but his emphasis is on the visual arts, in contrast to Gibbs, who stipulates that sound art is anything which ‘happens to make sounds as a by-product of another activity’ cannot be deemed sound art [2007: 11]. Gibbs’s and Licht’s contrasting definitions are illustrative of the aforementioned ‘battle’ for sound art; the divide of opinion between musicians and visual artists on its definition. A comprehensive definition, to encompass all practice of sound art, would have to be the union of both of the above definitions. David Toop addresses the issue that Licht fails to, asserting that in sound art, the ‘time base is confined by the ough I will be arguing that there is no distinct line between sound art and music, we should be wary of the temptation to say that sound art is inclusive of all music, which—in spite of its abstractly theoretical basis—would make it both a redundant term and one which is not reflective of its use by practitioners. 24 A sound sculpture being a ‘sculpture that is made with an inherent sound-producing facility in mind or a machine made for the same purpose’ [Licht 2007: 199]. 25 Take, for example, the Skyspace series of installations by light artist James Turrell, which are rooms whose interior lighting changes in synchronicity with the sunrise and sunset. It consequentially involves ‘performances’ at dawn and dusk, and its space is dependent on time [Yentob 2008]. 23
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accessibility of the space, rather than the attention span of the audience’. is accounts for the branch of space-oriented sound art which doesn’t explicitly engage with space, but rather creates or relies on an abstract(ed) environment. It must be considered, first, alongside other means of immersion of the various types discussed in the previous chapter; secondly, alongside the combination of sound with other media. On that latter point, it is worth illustrating how sound can be balanced alongside other media, and which cases can be considered to constitute sound art. For instance, from a purely textual perspective, it seems that video installations can be divided into three broad categories with regard to their use of sound, which are listed here in decreasing order of audio-visual interdependence: 1. at where sound is a component, or a direct or indirect artefact of the film matter (or indeed vice versa). is includes any sound which would be accepted by the viewer, according to a cultural understanding of cinematic convention, as ‘part of the film’, such as a musical soundtrack. 2. at where sound is neither a component nor a by-product of the film matter but is subsidiarily related to its temporality and/or narrative structure (for instance, a sound which is spatially displaced from a film (or number of simultaneously running distinct films) but accompanies it (or them) to create a narrative. 3. at where the sound is not subsidiary to the film matter, but both are mutually independent components of an art work in which their individual structures and/or temporalities combine to provide a resulting environment which is the synergy of the viewers contextual perception of each component (perhaps among others). According to both Gibbs [2007] and Kahn [2001], only the third category would qualify as sound art, sound playing at most a subsidiary role in the first two.
. A Prototypal Definition As a consequence of the points made in §., we can use a union of Gibbs’s and Licht’s differing definitions by taking an intersection of their most general criteria, aided by Toop’s more inclusive description of the use of spatiality. As there are a number of ways in which sound art can involve ‘extra-musical matter’, there are a number of branches. But they are all united by the underlying use of sound as a key conceptual component. I thus propose the following definition as one which encompasses the widest possible set of forms26 which can be considered sound art: ‘S A’ fulfils all three of the following criteria –: 1. It seeks to communicate through sound, by 1.A. actively emitting sound, or 1.B. involving the perception of an active or present sound. 26
Forms which we have seen so far, at least. 9
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2. e sound aspect must be a core conceptual element, not an artefact of an activity which is conceptually more important to the work than the sound. 3. It must involve extra-musical matter, i.e. by fulfilling at least one of the following four criteria .–.: 3.A.
it uses sound alongside (but not subsidiary to) another medium;
3.B.
it engages with the space (physical or abstract) in which it is presented, which it may do so either through inherent site-specificity or by relying on the space to provide context;
3.C.
it has time base prescribed by the accessibility of the (physical, abstract, or virtual) environment in which it is received;
3.D.
it seeks immersion of the audience through any of the following— 3.D.i. interactivity, 3.D.ii. creating or invoking an abstract environment,27 3.D.iii. invoking the presence of the audience.
is broader definition contains both that which is intersection of music and fine art, and that which pertains to the extensions of either one or the other. In the following chapters, I shall discuss the differences and mutualities of practices rooted in both established idioms with reference to elements of the above definition.
27
Which it may do so by the encapsulation of a narrative, as described in §.. 10
Chapter 3
Reconciling Different Approaches to Sound Art . Drawing the Line: Practitional Differences For her work Lowlands (), Susan Philipsz became the first artist in history to win the Turner Prize for a sound installation. e work comprises recordings of her singing Lowlands Way, a sixteenth-century Scottish lament, installed under three bridges 28 along the River Clyde in Glasgow [Philipsz 2010], ‘explor[ing] the way that sound can fill, explain and animate a space’ [ibid.]. For the Turner Prize exhibition, the work was reproduced in a bare white room [Curtis 2010], for which it received a mixed reaction, with some (predictably reactionist) criticisms from e Stuckists 29 that ‘it’s just someone singing in an empty room. It’s not art. It’s music’. is reaction demonstrates two things: first, the importance of site-specificity in Philipsz’s piece, which places ‘frailty and beauty’ (of her disembodied singing voice) within the ‘brutalist’ environment of the space under Glaswegian bridges, dark places of urban decay and illicit activity [Higgins 2010: 20]. is juxtaposition is central to the experience which her art seeks to create. e result of translation between spaces transforms her work into a piece of recorded music, decontextualized from the environment for it was conceived, prompting the misinterpretation of it simply being a piece of music. e irony of this claim is that Philipsz’s work falls into the practice of sound art which does not intersect with the typical practices of sound art whose roots are in music.30 Lowlands relies heavily on environmental and cultural context, but does so by employing a very traditional Western music, bypassing the sound/noise-oriented aesthetics of experimental music. On the other hand, musically-informed sound artists are still largely preoccupied with exploring experimental music forms within their sound art, and as such avoid such traditional forms [LaBelle, 2006: 158]. e focus which experimental music places on the use of sound within musical forms [Varése n.d./2008; Feldman n.d./2008], and its association with subversion [Attalli 1985] has, for the most part, placed an implicit stigma on the use of traditional form. In contrast, even when visual artists explore sound and noise, it tends not to be for sonic qualities but as a contextual reference.31 Robert Morris’s seminal sound sculpture Box with a Sound of its Own Making () involves a box emitting a sound recording of the box’s own construction. Whilst sonic qualities are present, the sound’s function is to imply of a self-referential narrative, calling on causal (rather than reduced) listening. is is all illustrative of the different emphases found in sound art created by artists, and by musicians. e former tends to place greater attention to concept or aesthetic, e George V Bridge, the Caledonian Railway Bridge, and Glasgow Bridge. An international art movement formed in 1999 to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. 30 Because sound artists of a musical background are typically informed by the aesthetics of experimental music, which does not directly inform Philipsz work at all. 31 Usually to its source—i.e. involving causal listening rather than reduced listening. 28 29
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and the latter on the poietic/tactile quality of sound [Tagg 2010: 103]—that which one might call ‘cra’. Whereas visual art requires the audience to look, an active process, sound can be used to be absorbed by either passively hearing or actively listening, and music has its historical basis in organising sound to invoke the latter—the cra of focusing the attention of the audience—the musician as an ‘architect of sounds’ [Schafer32 1973: 30]. Even in music of Cagean open form, or for instance ambient music, emphasis is still on somehow ‘shaping’ sound to alter one’s experience in a context defined by extra-musical matter, the ‘development of the texture of sound itself as a focus for compositional attention’ [Eno 1996: 95; Eco 1989: 168]; immersion in sound, rather than sound as a reflection upon some other medium, the latter of which is the focus of artists such as Philipsz. is treatment of sound is a trait of the musical need to ‘tame’ and control noise in some way, a sentiment expressed in the e Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto [Russolo 1986]. e tendency towards cra of sound sometimes results in musician’s mistrust of the ability of the fine arts’ community to understand the material quality of sound, particularly on a technical level: We still think of museum galleries as nineteenth-century galleries, like, ‘How do we hang this on the wall, how do we light it?’ But nobody knows anything about sound— […] ere isn’t that kind of knowledge and expertise in the museum world. MarClay, cited in Licht, , p.
Perhaps it is for this reason that, whereas site-specificity is inherently assumed in galleryrooted sound art, there is more variance in musically-informed sound art, which sees wider distribution in forms which can be received in a number of situations (MarClay, cited ibid., p.11). Arguably this can be accredited to the fact that, with the widespread use of recorded sound in installations, its respective musically-rooted practitioners advocate a preservation of the Schaefferian aesthetic that sound alone can create an immersive environment, rather than relying on any particular space. us in contrast to galleryrooted sound art, some sound artists such as Francisco Lopéz consider that work distributed on CD (for example) does not disqualify it from being sound art; dismissing the notion that site-specificity or emphasis on presence (via spontaneity or otherwise) are prerequisites for classification, as ‘puerile and futile’ attempts at an unnecessary transgression from established forms [Lopéz 1996]. Naturally, these standpoints lie at extremes of a spectrum.
. e Site-Specificity Spectrum Clearly, Lopéz’s stance is a divisive one not reflective of the gamut of approaches to presentation of sound that is found in the work of contemporary musically-rooted sound artists. ere is no intrinsic reason that site specificity should necessarily detract from the poietic qualities of sound—just in the same way that, as Lopéz himself says, ‘reduced listening doesn’t negate what is outside the sounds but explores and affirms all that is inside them’ [Lopéz 2001: 82–83]. As discussed in §., spatiality and site-specificity can be used in a number of different ways for different aesthetic reasons. Xenakis’s architecturally informed composition Terretektorh () involved scattering the 32
.. not be confused with Schaeffer. 12
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orchestra among the audience, so that each is within the other (Xenakis, cited in Matossian, 1986, p.), creating a Cagean immersion ‘tear[ing] down the psychological and auditive curtain that separates [the audience] from the players’ [Xenakis 2003]. is, and similar recent examples such as the Birmingham Opera Company’s immersive production of Verdi’s Othello (Vick, ), use spatial immersion not so much as a contextual reference to the site, but as a means of increasing audience immersion in the music (and in the latter case, the drama) itself. Along with Xenakis’s architecturallydriven interest in spatiality [LaBelle 2006: 183–192], this brings to the fore the most easily identifiable unity of the visual/physical approach to spatiality in sound art as an omnisensory immersion with musical practice: the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk [Dove 1994: 281]. Michael Fried is reported as having characterized the spectatorial aspect of installation art as ‘the distinction between art and theatre’ (Fried, cited in Meyer, 2000, p. 26). But should there be a distinction at all? e blurring of this line between static art and performance is a central to the ethics of installation art, and even more relevant to the incorporation of sound matter, whose intrinsic temporality is far more explicit than that implied by the aforementioned perceptual displacement described by Meyer (q.v. §.)—actively enforcing, rather than passively reflecting, a perceived passage of time. Site specificity is a more complex idea than it may at first seem, leading to a range of different applications. A sound may be tailored to a site to create particular environment, but it may equally be reliant on the properties of whatever site it is being performed in (as is '", for instance). Janek Schaefer’s 33 Recorded Delivery () was an installation in a storage facility which consisted of the amplified ‘recording of a package concealing a Dictaphone which was sent through the U.K. postal system’ [Schaefer 1995]. e package was addressed to be delivered to the room in which the installation was taking place. us the piece was site-specific, on a conceptual basis. e sound of the recording itself would not have evoked anything particular to the space in which it was received by the audience, i.e. its sonic qualities did not have an audible relationship to its environment (it could have been easily addressed to, and installed in, any other space without any difference to the poietic perception of the piece), but rather a referential one which requires prior knowledge of the concept on the part of the audience. e piece does however, create an environment which transforms its spatial frame by immersing the entire room ‘inside’ the package. at is to say, it translates the sonic narrative of the interior space of the package during its journey onto the installation’s space. By doing so, it puts the audience inside a sonic and spatial emulation 34 of a environmental narrative otherwise impossible for humans to inhabit. is is a more subtle use of space, lying inbetween the work of artists such as Philipsz, and the completely non-site specific work of Chris Watson. e latter is a phonographer specializing in natural history, who, like Schaefer, has created works which place the listener in an acoustic space which would be physically impossible to inhabit. His piece Vatnajökull () is a recording made by microphones embedded in an ice floe as it gradually cracks, melts and moves as part of its natural process. However, Watson’s work does not rely on any form of site-specificity in its presentation, being distributed instead as binaural recordings on CD intended for headphone listening [Toop 2004: 58]. Instead of transforming a physical installation space into a simulation of another space’s acoustic narrative, he instead imports the latter directly into the listener’s internal sonic azimuth, recreating a real environment as an 33 34
.. not be confused with either Schaeffer or Schafer. Albeit one which has been acoustically ‘scaled up’. 13
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entirely virtual one. Regardless of its presentation as music, Watson’s work also qualifies as sound art, as it invokes a virtual immersion, occupying the listener’s ‘head space’ which Schafer [1973: 35] describes as ‘a geography of the mind, which can be reached by no telescope’. However, it is also an immersion experienced privately, and as a result intensifies the (lone) presence of the listener. Schafer goes on to say that when sound is conducted directly through the skull of the headphone listener, he is no longer regarding events on the acoustic horizon; no longer is he surrounded by a sphere of moving elements. He is the sphere. He is the Universe. Schafer, , p.
Both Watson’s and Schaefer’s work combine the Cagean concepts of environmental immersion with a Schaefferian focus on reduced listening. Another sound art form which combines the contrasting elements of Cagean and Schaefferian aesthetics is the sound walk, in which the listener follows a route with the intention of reduced listening to the constantly moving environmental sound matter as they move through it [Chambers 1994]. e relationship between time and space becomes more complex, as in this case, not only is the time-base of the piece reliant on the accessibility of space (q.v. §.), but also vice versa, since it is dependent on the movement of the listener. Akio Suzuki created Sound Place () by walking into the city and graffiting a symbol on the wall ‘at any spot where he found an interesting sound’, then providing maps with those locations. Note how close Suzuki’s piece fits with the concept of Environments (q.v. §.). e relationship between time, space and listener becomes further complicated when considering the works of Janet Cardiff—sound walks accompanied by an audio recording of a narrator/guide alongside ambient sounds recorded along the same path that the listener is directed. is combines the listener’s external sensory sphere with their internal head space, and merges two temporally different narratives (past and present) of the same space to a point that the listener becomes ‘unsure whether [certain ambient sounds] are part of the CD recording or happening as real-time events’ [Toop 2004: 122]. Rather than utilising an entirely physical one, or creating an virtual space, it augments the reality of the former with the narrative of the latter. It also partly inverts the relationship between space and time: the time-base is closed on a macro scale (by the recorded directions), but controlled by the listener’s movement on a micro scale, which demonstrates rather well the fluid nature of the relationship between space and time in sound art.
. Erasing the Line: Underlying Mutualities Whereas artists such as Lopèz polarise themselves against fine art by taking a strict Schaefferian stance (q.v. §.), the Cageans who embrace non-sonic matter and emphasis on presence are treated with hostility from some theorists at the extreme of the fine-art end of the spectrum. Many misconceptions about sound art and experimental music being distinct stem from a lack of acknowledgement that sound art as an idiom in its own right was prefigured by a number of separate developments. Whilst there may be a distinction between sound art and experimental music, there is much overlap. Licht
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[2007: 12] describes, admittedly partly accurately, a tendency to apply the label ‘sound art’ to ‘any experimental music of the second half of the twentieth century, particularly to John Cage and his descendants’ and argues that, on the contrary, Cage was concerned with music as the organisation of sound—that all sounds can be used by composers as music—therefore still thinking in terms of music. In other words, Cage considers sound to be a means of an expanding an existing art form, rather than the basis for a new one. e rather facile distinction that Licht makes misses an important aforementioned point: that sound art existed before it had a name, as the total intersection of what its pioneers originally considered extensions of different practices. us Cage’s conception of sound as an extension of music does not necessarily exclude it from being considered as sound art. Conversely, the common thread running through Modernist reflexivity, Minimalism and installation art, each of which is an extension of the previous (q.v. §.), is well demonstrated by Mark Rothko’s later work (in his post-multiform era), which draws on ethics from all three of these. e textural nature of his monolithic paintings embraces the poietic perception of a tactile artistic object, which itself immerses the viewer [Staff 2010]. Being devoid of any representation or symbolism, they draw upon the Minimalist aesthetic, possessing what Barris calls ‘their own life force’ [Barris 2010]. What Barris appears to mean by this is that they exist as objects with a dynamic relation to their spatial frame, rather than as static, self-contained objects within it. Rothko acknowledged this, saying that space itself is ‘the chief plastic manifestation of the artist’s conception of reality’ [Rothko 2004: 59]. He donated the Seagram Murals to the Tate Gallery on the condition that they be hung in a precise way, in a room matching his exact specifications, with a specific type of lighting [Jones 2002]. is awareness is in keeping with the Minimalist ideal of the art object’s frame being part of the reception, but rather than employing a displacement from the poietic aspect to a (found) environment, it is instead an extension from the former to the (craed) latter, retaining the object’s physicality and tactile presence whilst also invoking spatial immersion, as well as implicit temporality: Whatever relationship was now to be perceived was contingent on the viewer’s temporal movement in the sphere shared with the object. Crimp, , p.
us it may be argued that poietically ‘static’ visual art is thus no less capable of invoking a spectatorial presence. Furthermore, Minimalist art’s extension of Modernist reflexivity suggests a logical progression to art with explicit temporal narrative. Again, this needn’t negate any emphasis on medium or space, but can rather enact a further extension. For instance, Anthony McCall’s light sculpture Line Describing a Cone . () projects light into a mist-filled space to create the illusion of ‘touchable’ light [McCall, 2010], thus emphasising both medium and space in a piece with a strict time-base. Light art is a practice which shares many analogies with sound art due to sharing a fundamentality of medium [McLuhan 1989: 67]. Light is the fundamental medium through which visual art is communicated, just as sound35 is to music. is direct analogy is illustrated well by two examples which are, bar the difference in medium, identical in their aesthetic. James Turrell’s recent work Bindu Shards () is a timed piece of work which can be viewed one person at a time, encapsulated by an enclosure with a pitch black interior which closes off all external senses, and comprises a rapid 35
or rather, technically, the vibration of matter whose frequency is within detectable range 15
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display of white light patterns inside the enclosure. It employs a ‘use of a single pure medium in its simplest form’ filling an isolated immersive space [Turrell 2010] in the same way that Ryoji Ikeda’s Matrix does. e latter is an installation for anechoic36 room, which fills a visually and acoustically blank isolated space with complex patterns of ‘pure’ sine tones [Toop 2004: 11–14]. Noteworthily, Turrell’s visual piece is presented in silence, and Ikeda’s in a darkened room. Glitch extends the Cagean aesthetic of reflection on medium of sound production by emphasising artefacts the recording process, and Ikeda’s anechoic sine-tone piece in particular calls upon our lack of everyday experience of ‘pure tone’ [Cowell n.d./2008]. First this is an example of a direct analogy between the medium-to-space extension of installation art and a musical equivalent, and thus a common underlying conceptual basis. Secondly, Ikeda’s piece is music, but it is also sound art, just as the performative aspect of Turrell’s does not detract from its validity as a piece of visual/fine art. Sound art is thus something that can also be music, as in the case of Cage or Ikeda, and something that can also rely heavily on other sensory elements, as in the case of Philipsz’s work. A different, and notable representation of space through sound is Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room (), which recursively iterates a recording in an acoustic space.37 It gradually strips away the original sound source and intensifies the resonant quality of the room, resulting in an acoustic representation of the space in which it was recorded. As a piece of experimental music, it is not site-specific in its presentation, but uses a specific space as its source: is slight shi overturns the sound source as a single object of attention, as a body of sound, and brings aurality into a broader field of consideration by introducing the contextual. Sound not as object, but as space. LaBelle, ,
It is creates a specific space whilst not requiring presentation within any particular kind of space, physical or abstract, and demonstrates the possibility for sound art 38 to be collapsed onto a medium which is poietically identical to experimental music. Finally, Byrne’s Playing the Building () is one work in particular which fully demonstrates that sound art is a continuum in-between, and inclusive of, subsets of music and fine art, by inhabiting both. It involves a (musical) keyboard (which the audience is invited to play) centred inside a large chamber, each key of which activates devices attached to the building structure […] metal beams, pillars, heating pipes […] e devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument. Byrne,
In doing so, if fuses not only both site as concept and as a spatial listening environment, but also as a means of producing sound itself (as opposed to merely a frame in which to observe it). It is both the work itself and the frame, the two becoming indistinguishable. Devoid of any acoustic reflection, without reverb. A recording of Lucier’s voice was made in room, and the amplified sound of it being played back in the same room was re-recorded. is process was repeated. 38 at is, a particular type of sound art. 36 37
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‘is piece makes the act of [reduced listening of the environment] incredibly easy’ [ibid.] by presenting it as both an interactive work for those engaging with the keyboard; and for those observing, an immersive performance. Either way it brings to fore, and requires, the presence of the listener/audience. We may consider Byrne’s invitation to the audience to ‘play the building as an instrument’ as an open-form piece of experimental music. At the same time, it can be regarded as a interactive installation concerned with material immersion, making visually explicit the mechanical means of sound production. e work is site-specific and simultaneously non–site-specific; it has been installed at a number of locations with conceptual and aesthetic retention, yet with each location providing its own distinct poietic qualities. Despite the sound source being explicit (rather than acousmatic), it still encourages a listening closer to the Schaefferian reduced mode than does Philipsz’s Lowlands. Byrne’s transformation of the environment into an instrument asks those who play it to consider the space and its enclosure not for its extra-musical or contextual referents, but rather in the same way that a musician may consider an instrument for its sound-making capabilities. He thus incorporates a treatment of sound for its tactile qualities whilst still posing Cagean questions of medium, space, spontaneity and presence. Playing the Building integrates such a variety of aesthetics that it could be categorised as experimental music, sound art, installation art, conceptual art, and/or community art. It is, of course, all of these at once.
. An Interdisciplinary Continuum (Concluding Remarks) I hope that the above discussion of examples has illustrated how differing aesthetics in sound art lie on a continuum, rather than simply belonging to distinct camps. e aesthetic influences of musically-based and visually-based works vary in a manner much more complex than that described by either Licht or Gibbs. Both Philipsz and Byrne’s works draw on different effects of, but are both united by, Cagean immersion and ‘presence’. e trend among musicians to avoid the use of traditional music is counterreflected by visually-based artists’ liberal use of it. So bizarrely, the ‘experimental music’ identity—in the realm of sound art—becomes the one which narrows practice rather than broadening it. e converse applies to the visual arts in relation to their emphasis on the necessity of a visual/physical element rather than a virtual or abstracted one. ese differences exist in practice, but beneath the surface remains a strong mutual vein of historical basis in immersive conceptuality. e analogies between Ikeda’s and Turrell’s work reflect just how closely linked each field’s practices of medium emphasis can be. Whilst Schaefer’s Recorded Delivery is a sitespecific work, it may be performed anywhere, as is the case with Watson’s work, and many other phonographists. A piece of sound art can reflect on an environment without necessarily needing to be installed in its location [Sansom 2011]. Visual works which can exist beyond physical boundary (via lossless reproduction)—for instance a photograph —are not disqualified as ‘art’, so why should a sound recording be for not being tied to some kind of visual anchor? e implications from the two sides of each other’s field seems to be that visual/spatial media facilitate immersion in music, and sonic/temporal media enable it in visual art. In which case, the real issue is that of an omni-sensory approach, which belongs not to one field or the other, but to both. 17
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Sound art is thus not necessarily the ‘battleground’ that Gibbs describes, because it is not a discrete field in-between and/or distinct from music and art. Rather, it can exist entirely within both, it extends both, and it intersects both—sometimes simultaneously. It is not a ‘battleground’ but rather a ‘bridge’, a middle-ground for mediating expression in either and/or both. And all of its focal parameters, which I outlined in §. (spatiality, medium, immersion, interactivity, etc.) are not binary decisions to be made by the artist, but rather they are continuously variable in both execution and reception, on various poietic axes, as the examples in §. illustrate. ere will always be partisan stances on aesthetics and practice, since polar ends are an inevitable property of any linear spectrum. But, as aforementioned, differences in creative treatment of sound and vision may simply stem from our culture of mostly separating the study of musical practice from art practice: this can become problematic when preconceptions rely on […] models based on the way things used to be […] when [music was] narrowly defined. Young, , p.
ese need not be disposed, but could be supplemented with a wider teaching of practice in ‘the space between’. e two fields might then be able to give up the notion that there exists (or that there should exist) a line between musically-informed and fineart informed approaches to sound art—which, I hope this text has substantiated, is certainly not the case. Perhaps more importantly, breaking down this barrier in the way creative practice is taught and understood could prompt a shi towards more open and more extensively embraced interdisciplinary pluralism.
18
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Xenakis, Iannis, : Iannis Xenakis (–), CD. Edition RZ, /, p.. Young, Gayle, : ‘Redefinition within the Changing Acoustic Environment’. Leonardo Music Journal, Vol., pp.–, http://www.jstor.org/stable/ , accessed //.
Watson, Chris, : ‘Vatnajökull’, Weather Report, CD. Touch, :, Track . Xenakis, Iannis, : ‘Terretektorh’, Iannis Xenakis (–), Charles Bruck, Orchestre Philharmonique de l’, CD. Edition RZ, /, Track . Yentob, Alan, : ‘Let ere Be Light’, Imagine… //, :, BBC One.
Audio-Visual Resources, Works of Art & Exhibitions Byrne, David, : Playing the Building, interactive installation, Roundhouse, London. Cage, John, : '", for piano. Duchamp, Marcel, : Fountain, Society of Independent Artists, New York. Lucier, Alvin, : I Am Sitting in a Room, CD. Lovely Music, . McCall, Anthony, : Line Describing a Cone 2.0, film projection / light sculpture, Tate Modern, London. Morris, Robert, : Box with the Sound of its Own Making, sound sculpture, exh. , Green Gallery, New York. Philipsz, Susan, : Lowlands, sound installation, : George V Bridge, and Caledonian Railway Bridge, and Glasgow Bridge, Glasgow. : Tate Britain, London.
Dept of Music & Sound Recording University of Surrey GU2 7XH
Rauschenberg, Robert, : White Paintings, canvas series, Stable Gallery, New York. Rothko, Mark, : Seagram Murals, canvas series, Tate Modern, London
Submitted as an M.Mus. case study. Copyright © 2011 by Jeevan C. Rai. e moral right of the author has been asserted.
Sansom, Matthew, : An interview about his installation Vital Organs () conducted via email.
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