SOUND ART

'Sound art' is a loosely associated group of art practices that concern sound and listening as their focus. From the Western art historical tradition early examples include Luigi Russolo's ''Intonarumori'' or noise machines, and subsequent experiments by Dadaists, Surrealists, the Situationist International, and in Fluxus happenings. Because of the diversity of sound art, there is often debate about whether sound art falls inside and/or outside of both the visual art and experimental music categories.
Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art is often very interdisciplinary, commonly engaging in acoustics and psychoacoustics, audio technologies (both analog and digital), found or environmental sound, exploration of the human body, in conjunction with the standard set of visual issues found in contemporary art.
Other artistic lineages from which sound art emerges are sound poetry, spoken word, avant garde poetry, and experimental theater. Early practitioners include Tristan Tzara, Kurt Schwitters, Tomasso Marinetti, William S. Burroughs, Hugo Ball, and Henri-Martin Barzun.

Contents

Controversy

Sound Artists

Sound art organizations and festivals

See also

Further reading

External links

Articles

Resources

Controversy

There is heated debate among artists and theorists concerning the definition and history of Sound Art, which gives rise to other contentious issues. Here is a partial list of some of the current arguments:

★ Is "sound installation" the only true form of Sound Art? (This relates to the possible origin of the term "Sound Art" as a translation of German "Klangkunst.")

★ Which genres fit into the category of Sound Art?

★ Which artists qualify as Sound Artists?

★ Is music a subcategory of Sound Art?

★ Should Sound Art be taught in art schools?

★ Should Sound Art be taught in music schools?

★ Where should Sound Art be taught and how?

★ Is Sound Art exclusively an electronic medium, or can it also exist without the loudspeaker (i.e., acoustic sound, thought, physical movement)?

★ Does Sound Art grow entirely out of the Industrial Revolution and the Electronic Revolution, or can it be traced to other roots as well?

★ Was John Cage a Sound Artist? (This relates to statements by Cage that refer to his work as music.)
See the Articles listed below for various views.

Sound Artists

Sound art organizations and festivals

★ Sonic Arts Network

★ Opsound

★ NOMAD's "ctrl_alt_del" festival

See also

★ List of topics related to Sound Art

★ Sonification

★ custom-made instruments

★ list of custom-made instrument builders

★ Soundscape

Further reading

★ Cox, Christoph and Daniel Warner (Editors) (2004) "Audio Culture". ISBN 978-0826416155.

★ Cox, Christoph, "Return to Form: Neo-modernism in Sound Art." "Artforum" (November 2003) [1]

★ de la Motte, Helga; Leitner, Bernhard; and Schulz, Bernd (Editors) (2003). ''Resonances''. ISBN 3-933257-86-7.

★ Drobnick, Jim (Editor) (2004). ''Aural Cultures''. ISBN 0-920397-80-8.

★ Kahn, Douglas, "Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts" (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001).

★ LaBelle, Brandon, "Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art" (New York: Continuum, 2006).

★ Lucier, Alvin and Douglas Simon, "Chambers," (1980), (Wesleyan University Press: Middletown, Connecticut, ISBN 0819550426.

★ Oliveros, Pauline, "Software for People," (1984), ISBN0914162608.

★ Paik, Nam June, "Post Music Manifesto," Videa N Videology (Syracuse, New York: Everson Museum of Art, 1963).

★ Schafer, R. Murray, "The Soundscape," (1977), (Destiny Books: Rochester, Vermont), ISBN 0892814551

External links

Articles

★ Short Circuit: Sound Art and The Museum by Brandon LaBelle

★ Bring Da Noise: A Brief Survey of Sound Art by Kenneth Goldsmith in newmusicbox the webmagazine of American Music Center, March 1, 2004.

★ The Art of Noise by David Toop, Tate Online, Issue 3, Spring 2005

★ GUARDIAN: Prick up your ears, Stephen Poole on sound art Saturday November 17, 2001

★ Return to Form: Neo-Modernism in Sound Art by Christoph Cox

★ Artkrush.com feature on Sound Art (January 2006)

★ Aesthetical Issues of Sound Art by Paul Panhuysen

★ The sound installation by Manuel Rocha Iturbide

★ Boundaries and Definitions: The SoundAsArt Conference, Aberdeen Scotland (24–26 November, 2006) by Scott Wilson in CeC eContact! 9.2

★ What is Sound Art? by N.B. Aldrich

Resources

★ UBUWEB - Audio Art examples to Download

★ Sound Art links page

★ Sound Art links page in Spain

★ Sound Art links page in Mexico