| With all the new forms of technology affordably available to consumers and artists alike in today’s age, one would think that the realm of sound art is more accessible than ever before and overwhelming in its possibilities. But how far has this new technology allowed artists to reexamine sound as an artistic medium? Have the ideas behind the artwork evolved with the technology? On an investigation to see how far sound art has come, three recent sound art projects from The Kitchen, Mass MOCA and Williams College Museum of Art are examined. |  |
Reexamining Sound Art—3 Recent Projects – Andrzej Lawn
With all the new forms of technology affordably available to consumers and artists alike in today’s age, one would think that the realm of sound art is more accessible than ever before and overwhelming in its possibilities. But how far has this new technology allowed artists to reexamine sound as an artistic medium? Have the ideas behind the artwork evolved with the technology? On an investigation to see how far sound art has come, three recent sound art projects from The Kitchen, Mass MOCA and Williams College Museum of Art are examined.
Christina Kubisch’s Electrical Walk is an acoustic work that comprises of sets of headphones that convert electromagnetic signals into sound. Complete with a suggested walk map, Kubish’s headphones allow one to go on an acoustic tour of New York’s airwaves. Using technology as an extension of our ears, Electric Walk allows the listener to hear what is constantly around us, making audible the invisible. Technology’s development has allowed this project to exist; yet the idea stems from early experiments in radio broadcasts by the Futurists, known as “La Radia,” where the audible interference between signals was used as an artistic device. Offering little more than a translator, Kubisch’s headphones act as an incomplete Rosetta stone. As one is lost among the electromagnetic radiation that constantly surrounds us, one is also lost among the sounds generated by Electrical Walk.
Underneath the bridge of Route 2, steps away from the entrance to Mass MOCA, sits Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger’s recent creation entitled Harmonic Bridge. Two speakers sit opposite each other beneath the underpass acting as catalysts, amplifying sounds that are generated by the traffic above. The low hums and rolling sounds create a counterpoint to the traffic above and take on a John Cage-like feel. John Cage once said “There always are sounds…whether I make them or not there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent.” But does an excellent or new sound make good art? In this case, Harmonic Bridge fits better in the musical domain than the artistic realm.
Pushing sound art in a different direction, Perry Hall’s “Sound Drawings” at Williams College focuses on the physiological effects of sound on paint. By running deep sounds through liquid paint, Hall reveals delicate fractal-like structures within the paint itself. Showing a series of digital prints complimented by videos, one can see the discontinuities, ruptures and redistributions in the medium as it is affected by the sound. The ideas behind Hall’s Sound Drawings are very compelling, but the visual aspect presented through the prints and videos falls flat. The small digital pictures don’t allow for enough visual depth, and unlike fractals, one cannot continue to go infinitely deeper into the work. Like many sound art projects, Hall’s work fails to encompass the embodiment of his ideas.
Although these three projects have complications, sound art is still an area with great potential and one that should be explored further. To borrow from Sol LeWitt, “The idea becomes the machine that makes the art.” Yet one feels that in many of these technologically saturated works the ideas are somehow slipping through and being left behind. Instead of coming through the work, the ideas are now available in supporting texts and pamphlets. Something has gone awry, and the disconnection between the technology, the artwork and its ideas is becoming ever more pronounced.
It is time to take a step back and reexamine the roots of sound art in order to forge ahead. In sound art, early experiments by the Futurists come to mind, in particular Luigi Russolo’s 1913 manuscript The Art of Noise. In the concluding paragraphs of his text, Russolo sets out a series of guidelines for the noise artist. Long gone are the Futurists and Russolo’s “noise-intoners,” but, when looking at sound art today, the ideas that are now wrapped up in a complex net of electronics, stem directly from the ideas of those that did it first. Whereas technology is quickly applied as an extension of the body, it cannot be so easily applied to artwork. A new mindset and way of thinking is needed to incorporate technology into artwork while still maintaining a sense of the tactile.
