Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories - Hardcover

Licht, Alan

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9780847829699: Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0847829693 ISBN 13: 9780847829699

Publisher: Rizzoli, 2007

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Over the past century, an art form has emerged that draws from the worlds of visual art and music. Sound art’s roots can be found in the experimental work of Italian Futurism, Dada, and later the Fluxus group and the pioneering efforts of the American composer and artist John Cage. In the wake of this groundbreaking work, sound art began to mature into a movement, and artists explored the interactive possibilities of sound and in turn created entirely new modes of experiencing and engaging with art. In this volume, the complete story of sound art is told by one of the country’s leading critics and scholars. The author traces the history of this form of art–highlighting the convergence of the indie world bands such as Sonic Youth with the art world–looking at the critical cross-pollination that has led to some of the most important and challenging art being produced today, including work by Christian Marclay, LaMonte Young, Janet Cardiff, Rodney Graham, and Laurie Anderson, among many others.

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About the Author:

Alan Licht is an American composer, guitarist, music writer, and a widely respected figure on the experimental music scene. He is not only responsible for important album reissues, but was a member of the cult classic NYC bands Love Child and Run On. He currently lives in New York City. Jim O’Rourke is an American musician and producer, and most widely known as a member of the rock band Sonic Youth. Considered an expert on experimental music, he has scored films for Werner Herzog and Olivier Assayas.

Everyone has a diferen t poin t at whic h they ari ve at the ques tion "is ar t sound , and is sound ar t?" First separating sound from music can lead someone down a path of falling under the spell of the sound of an empty coffee can, and quite possibly be suitably satisfied. Others may feel the need to return that coffee can back to the counter and set it into some kind of constellate that organizes sounds into space. If that can is suitably attractive, it may come to mind that the sound is married to that can, and what that can means in a larger social sense. It's quite possible the absence of the coffee, or more precisely the sound of the coffee, would lead to some reverie over whether sounds have lives of their own, and if they miss each other when they leave. This most usually leads to trying to find the sound which is not a sound, which in its lack of soundness implies all sounds and we're right where we started. So, in short, sound art may well be what you call it, and where you are coming from. If you're an artist, in the (relatively) traditional sense, and you find that neon tube is better heard and not seen, it could be sound art. If you're a musician and the sound of the piano lid closing on someone's fingers, who just can't seem to correctly play the rhythms derived from the gravitational pull of the sun, you may well have some sound art. Of course, that's up to you. This book examines a wide range of possibilities of redefining not only the context in which sound is presented and framed, but in how we choose to look at it. And when you look at sound, you may ask yourself, is it sound or is it art, and we're right back where we started. -- Jim O'Rourke

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