An Introduction To a Blurry Art Form C. Reider, 2012 What is Sound Art? An Introduction To a Blurry Art Form C. Reider, 2012

Wikipedia definition: Sound art is a diverse group of art practices that considers wide notions of sound, listening and hearing as its predominant focus. There are often distinct relationships forged between the visual and aural domains of art and perception by sound artists. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art is interdisciplinary in nature, or takes on hybrid forms. Sound art often engages with the subjects of acoustics, psychoacoustics, electronics, noise music, audio media and technology (both analog and digital), found or environmental sound, explorations of the human body, sculpture, film or video and an ever-expanding set of subjects that are part of the current discourse of contemporary art.

My Definition A diverse set of interdisciplinary art practices which use sound as a conveyor of meaning.

Different Forms of Sound Art Sound sculpture / kinetic sculpture Automatons Video art Radio art Installations (often site-specific) Sound-walks Instrument Making Graphic Scores Acoustic Ecology / Phonography etc.

Seth Kim-Cohen's Expanded Sonic Field From “In the Blink of an Ear” 2009 Continuum Books

Luigi Russolo Dynamism of a Train, 1912 1883-1947 Italian Futurist Painter / Composer

“L'arte dei Rumori” (The Art of Noises), 1913 Six “families of noise”: Roars, Thunderings, Explosions, Hissing roars, Bangs, Booms Whistling, Hissing, Puffing Whispers, Murmurs, Mumbling, Muttering, Gurgling Screeching, Creaking, Rustling, Buzzing, Crackling, Scraping Noises obtained by beating on metals, woods, skins, stones, pottery, etc. Voices of animals and people, Shouts, Screams, Shrieks, Wails, Hoots, Howls, Death rattles, Sobs

Luigi Russolo's Intonarumori. Photo: 1919

Progenitors of Sound Art Marcel Duchamp – 1887-1968 Pierre Schaeffer - 1910-1995 Antonin Artaud - 1896-1948 Kurt Schwitters - 1887-1948 John Cage - 1912-1992

Box With the Sound of Its Own Making – 1961 Sound Sculpture Robert Morris Box With the Sound of Its Own Making – 1961 (The box plays back a 3-hour long tape recording of the construction process of this simple wooden box)

Sound Sculpture Harry Bertoia Harry Bertoia was a jeweler and metalworker who designed a series of highly modernist chairs that ended up selling so well that he was able to devote himself to sculpture exclusively in the 1950s, predominantly exploring visually striking metal forms that give off a chorus of pings and metallic whooshes when activated by a human 'player' or by the wind. He self-published a number of recordings of himself playing his own sound sculptures, all titled “sonambient”.

Untitled Sound Sculptures – 1950-1978 Harry Bertoia Untitled Sound Sculptures – 1950-1978

Sound Sculpture Laurie Anderson Handphone Table - 1978 Artist statement: “I got the idea for the handphone table when I was typing something on an electric typewriter. It wasn't going very well and I got so depressed I stopped and just put my head in my hands. That's when I heard it: a loud hum coming from the typewriter, amplified by the wooden table and running up my arms, totally clear and very loud. So I built a table and rigged it for sound. Inside the table were cassette decks and powerful drivers which compressed the pre-recorded sounds and drove them up steel rods. The tip of these rods touched four plugs resembling pine knots embedded in the surface of the table. When you put your elbows on these plugs the sound rose through your arms via bone conduction. When you put your hands over your ears, it was like putting on a pair of powerful stereo headphones. (...) “Because the handphone table had a rather high "science fair" quotient anyway, I didn't want to put a technical explanation on the wall ("put your elbows on the table and you will hear via bone conduction... etc etc) So I just put a big photograph on the wall a man holding his head in his hands and some text and hoped that people would get the idea. I wrote three songs for the handphone table. The (…) songs used the lowest ranges of the instruments, since bass frequencies, being wide and slow, travel well. Treble is more skittish and tends to evaporate. Since much of language is shaped by treble sounds, for example (it's the t's and the s's and other fragile pointy sounds that define words) it was difficult to make the table speak clearly. Finally I was able to make language work by slowing it down and using elaborate equalization.” --Excerpt from “Stories from the Nerve Bible” by Laurie Anderson Handphone Table - 1978

Sound Sculpture (Art about sound) Christian Marclay Footsteps - 1989 The Beatles - 1989 Christian Marclay's 1980 installation “Footsteps” featured hundreds of vinyl records on which had been pressed the sound of Marclay walking. Visitors walked directly upon the records during the exhibition, and afterwards the records, each uniquely scuffed / damaged were distributed as a product. His '89 piece “The Beatles” is a pillow woven of cassette tape, the entire recorded output of the band the Beatles. His “Recycled Records” of the early 80s, and use of turntablism for abstract sonic possibilities rather than beat making inspired many experimental musicians, incl. AMK, PBK and Otomo Yoshihide. Recycled Records - 1980 Lip Lock - 2000 Virtuoso - 2000

Sound Sculpture / Kinetic Sculpture Jean Tinguely

Sound Sculpture / Kinetic Sculpture Jean Tinguely Tinguely's mechanized apparatus' clearly inspired many sound artists today, especially those working in the field of musical automatons, such as Pierre Bastien and Maxime de la Rochefoucauld. Méta-Harmonie II - 1979

Maxime de la Rochefoucauld a.k.a. Maxime Rioux Kinetic Sculpture / Musical Automatons Maxime de la Rochefoucauld a.k.a. Maxime Rioux Maxime de la Rochefoucauld's work could be described as kinetic sculpture, or automatons, or even as musical instruments. Most of the many automatons he creates are 'controlled' by synthesizer playing sub-audible frequencies which drive speaker cones activating levers & springs which strike and skitter across various resonant surfaces.

Maxime de la Rochefoucauld Kinetic Sculpture / Musical Automatons Maxime de la Rochefoucauld Trois Courtes Pieces - 2000

Sound Sculpture / Instrument Making Trimpin Trimpin is pictured here during a gallery installation of his work titled “Conloninpurple”, a collection of woodblocks actuated by solenoid striker. The blocks are tuned to a microtonal scale favored by the composer Conlon Nancarrow.

Sound Sculpture / Instrument Making Trimpin Fire Organ

Sound Sculpture / Instrument Making David Byrne Playing the Building

Sound Sculpture / Instrument Making / Installation David Byrne David Byrne was the lead singer of the pop group the Talking Heads. Playing the Building

Harry Partch Instrument Making Gourd Tree & Cone Gongs - 1964 Cloud Chamber Bowls 1950-51 Quadrangularis Reversum - 1965

Installation Ryoji Ikeda

Installation Ryoji Ikeda The Transfinite - 2011

Installation Zimoun

186 Prepared DC-Motors, Cardboard Boxes 60x60x60cm - 2010 Installation Zimoun 186 Prepared DC-Motors, Cardboard Boxes 60x60x60cm - 2010

Felix Gonzalez-Torres Installation Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Golden) - 1995

Felix Gonzalez-Torres Installation Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Golden) - 1995

Alvin Lucier Installation I am Sitting In a Room - 1969 I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have. I am Sitting In a Room - 1969

Site-specific Installation Susan Phillipsz

Site-specific Installation Susan Phillipsz Lowlands - 2010

Site-specific Installation Doug Hollis Sound Garden – Seattle, 1983

Site-specific Installation Doug Hollis Sound Garden – Seattle, 1983

Video Art Steina Vasulka

Voice Windows – 1986 (with Joan La Barbara) Video Art Steina Vasulka Voice Windows – 1986 (with Joan La Barbara)

Video Art / Interactive Instrument Hybrid Andy Huntington Sound Fountain - 2011

Video Art / Interactive Instrument Hybrid Andy Huntington Sound Fountain - 2011

April 20-29, ArtLab Fort Collins Student project deadline: February 13 SoundThroughBarriers.com Twitter User: LiminalListener Mail to: chris@soundthroughbarriers.com

Student Project Proposal

April 20-29, ArtLab Fort Collins Student project deadline: February 13 SoundThroughBarriers.com Twitter User: LiminalListener Mail to: chris@soundthroughbarriers.com

Selected Videos of Sound Art Christine Sun Kim - deaf sound artist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqJA0SZm9zI&feature=player_embedded Gun Holmstrom - Omphalomin - Helsinki 2006 http://youtu.be/QbhzXXqbvqg A visit to Harry Partch's studio (part 1 of 2) http://youtu.be/P8NIpPhXpfQ Jean Tinguely - Narva http://youtu.be/MXvdJYlYOj4 Jean tinguely - Meta harmonie II http://youtu.be/lcrGsJJLqpE Jean Tinguely - Meta Harmonie IV http://youtu.be/kaS9QoR3C8U Zimoun - 216 DC motors, filler wire http://youtu.be/nVS_ntwJFtk Zimoun - 186 DC Motors, cardboard boxes http://youtu.be/YC-Zfpeh6zk Zimoun - 361 DC Motors, filler wire http://youtu.be/fvBjb4ddJOA Zimoun - 138 DC Motors, cardboard boxes http://youtu.be/iwtsqgPbCso Ujino Muneteru - Plywood City 2010 http://youtu.be/Ux11WxPn4zE Ryoji Ikeda - The Transfinite 2011 http://youtu.be/pG79ev_4FeM Susan Phillipsz - Lowlands 2010 http://youtu.be/UWeKzTDi-OA Doug Hollis - A Sound Garden - Seattle 1983 http://youtu.be/1aGUPZc53cQ Harry Bertoia sound sculptures played by Val Bertoia http://youtu.be/TtZ3qmGBWEM Andy Huntington - Sound Fountain http://vimeo.com/1187622 Trimpin - Fire Organ http://youtu.be/wto4R73XBMQ Trimpin - Sheng High http://youtu.be/R8a9urT2WPY David Byrne - Playing the Building http://youtu.be/NizlkL0DU-A Gustavo Mutamoros - sound frequency room test http://youtu.be/fTMp60U_AQk Michael Brewster - Room Audition (3 of 3) http://youtu.be/GjG70QBHClU Maxime de la Rochefoucauld - Marionettes http://youtu.be/TNeD5W7-3qI Maxime de la Rochefoucauld - Trois Courtes Pieces http://youtu.be/Ew5MYpm2Zow