| Today, more than ever before, highly meaningful work is being produced in the realm of sound and visual experimentation, bringing us to a new paradigm, which cannot easily be defined through criticism and that only comes from the marriage of music and art. Unquestionably, there are many forms of art that clearly belong to the world of music, while others belong to the world of the visual arts, but it must be said that there are some true and genuine artistic expressions that do not dwell in either category—or at least not exclusively. |
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New Perspectives On Sound Art – Vittoria Broggini
Today, more than ever before, highly meaningful work is being produced in the realm of sound and visual experimentation, bringing us to a new paradigm, which cannot easily be defined through criticism and that only comes from the marriage of music and art.
Unquestionably, there are many forms of art that clearly belong to the world of music, while others belong to the world of the visual arts, but it must be said that there are some true and genuine artistic expressions that do not dwell in either category—or at least not exclusively. These forms of art show us new contexts, horizons and heights and, therefore, deserve new parameters of reading and interpretation. These new parameters must be able to move in a dynamic, lateral way through the background of general art and aesthetics.
We are not speaking in generic terms here. On the contrary, these new forms of art move away from both the fragmentation and the extreme specificity that characterize a single artistic expression, and then try to build a new and better theoretical understanding of themselves: a new understanding that might be, at the same time, broader and more pure than any used before.
This is because we are talking about works that do not bring the observers (or should we say "those who enjoy"?) into a precise "place," but rather into a totally new dimension of pure aesthetics: a dimension in which the concepts of space and time that belong to the so-called "sensorial experience" flow fluidly through the smooth and beautiful indeterminacy of the senses.
By making the concept of sound art broader—until each and every existing connection to the few artists that can be considered for the purposes of that definition are lost—we finally find ourselves, today, capable of standing before and giving a better visibility to all those practitioners who put the sound element at the center of their work. These artists then traverse the realm of the purely experimental sound and vision by shifting their attention towards new artistic expressions that are capable of defying any strict borderline.
Many are the relationships between sound and visual art, just like many and heterogeneous are their results and landings. The sound element itself, for instance, is fit to be used in different modulations: from the raw and grating noise that must be sculpted in order to show its full visual, spatial and environmental potential, to the simple input that is able to generate boundless images in the observer; images that are the visual counterpart to things that, usually, can only be heard.
In general, sound is studied and experimented with by using a different approach than the one that is only aimed at the simple composition of a musical piece. In the light of the contributions given by the so-called serial music as well as by the minimal approach, sound has found, today, some new models that position it in a totally innovative artistic dimension that is capable of both transforming and increasing its strength as well as its perceptive aspects.
A good first example of this work is given by Xabier Iriondo, a musician who mixes old records (78 RPM) through a 1920s Gramophone with sounds of self-made ethnic and electro-acoustic instruments.
Standing in a delicate balance between the performance with objects and a real concert, his "Live In Solo" mixes and blends together in a delicate way timbre research, or sound experimentation and pure melody of the so-called sound deconstruction.
It is a beautiful and kaleidoscopic trans-language of both sounds and nuances that sometimes grazes the silence and sometime noise: a language in which the creative gesture is born from wise and careful construction of the instrument and then lasts in the warm manipulation of its possibilities.
Some sort of "workbench" from which the musician makes his own experiments allows us to share the charm of certain gestures that, just like rituals, set the sound free and create an object—even the most common one—full of infinite calls, nuances, visual and sounding suggestions. This love for the object and its invisible history, is told by sound; sound that becomes the living memory of the experiences that have passed through it.
Another and very different example is given by the Symbiosis Orchestra, a varied ensemble characterized by classical and electronic instrumental sounds (derived from flute, laptop, electric strings and computerized voices). Amid its different teams and structures, is the precious collaboration of Scanner, a musician who explores many approaches to sound making (he has actually created synthetic new sounds, new timbres and extremely anomalous rhythms).
During the performances of Symbiosis Orchestra, music and images blend together—as we said before—in a symbiotic way. Musical and visual language find a new way to express themselves and something like a new grammar is created—a grammar that expresses itself through synergy and balance of time. Musical and visual language create a space that is, at the same time, fluid and diffuse like a warm white light or enveloping and elusive like the atmosphere.
Maybe it is the time they use, or the continuum in which they flow, or perhaps the way that space is designed. Maybe it is the combination of them all, but what makes the performance of Symbiosis Orchestra extraordinary is it’s creation of a work at the same time and in one time, perfect and specific to the site in which it performs while always remaining dynamic and balanced, as compared to the other sites where they were or will be: all different places and yet all the same one.
Another approach is that of Dominique Petitgand, an artist who explores the language of sound by favoring the recording of "natural" sounds like voices, breathing and all the other "real" sounds that can usually be found in the environment we live in. These sounds can be put together into a story in which silence and pause are basic elements of the narrative.
The artist is capable of making his sound perfect for any time and space; he can take both its individuality and timely reference away and then give it back to the listeners in a different a widely evocative way: like a sliver of something whose content is and shall always be elusive and therefore perfect for everyone’s memory.
Sound can bring the listener back to an ideal world; a world where images constantly change their shades and any attempt to define them becomes just an emotion, structured amongst other emotional perceptions. We are talking about a permanent feeling of unstable balance between what the listener believes he knows and what he does not know at all.
What really matters for Petitgand is that sound is like an element, but an element that lacks something; an element that does not have a visual dimension of its own. The works of Petitgand reflect on the emptiness of the place that hosts them; the space is just a physical support to the listening and nothing more.
The artist himself says: "I can show my works in different places and situations, but really the main and central place is art. The world of the art adopts the orphan, bizarre and lawless practices."
