Sound as Art | Art as Noise
From the MoMA Catalyst class:
“John Cage talked about all sound being equal, whether “musical” or not, people thought he was a musical prankster. Nowadays, we see sound becoming more and more prominent in the arts, not just as a musical form, but in the visual arts: in museums, galleries and festivals. Do you agree that sound (and noise) can be appreciated as an artistic medium for studio artists? Does it make sense for visual artists to embrace sound as a sculptural form? Or should sound be relegated to the musical world, the sole province of musicians.”
Absolutely, sound is art. There are really no boundaries any longer about what can be art. Sound in particular is quite an enjoyable and touching addition to creative projects, or powerful when on its own. If an artist uses sound as medium, any sound, recorded, created or experienced live, then that sound becomes art. The audience may not be as familiar with artworks that feature auditory stimuli, but their bodies are prepared and ready to integrate the experience into their art voyage. It is just a matter of listening.
Sound project with only words: family reunion July 2014
I was awakened by the sharp slam of the back porch screen door. My cousin, his wife and their 4 children have just arrived to the creaky old summer house on the lake. The kitchen filled with relief from the drone of the drive, exuberant to be out of the car, welcomed by the 5 or 6 other kids of cousins eating their syrup dripping pancake breakfast at the round table, the clatter of their bickering that drifted into my early morning half dozing, halted momentarily, to mutate to a surprised welcome full of hellos, hugs, and questions, everyone talking at once, the small space amplifying the noise, tunneling it straight into my small room. Laughter mixes with commands from my aunt, manning the sizzling griddle, directing the next taker of the hot pancake to come and get it, and ‘Cliff, grab some cups for the coffee’, she bellows in the other direction, the clattering kitchen a pot full of sounds.
Ah, my MoMA class, I think, as the light breeze from the open window at the my head brings in the rustle and twitters of the morning air. The multiple layers of sounds I’m experiencing make me crack a smile. As I roll over and sit up in the tiny vintage twin bed, the springs creaking their concerto, adding another layer to the mix. I reach for the iPhone, tap in the lock code, and fire up the microphone app. I click ‘record’, the light blinks but the seconds don’t progress. Time clicks but doesn’t click. I jab at ‘stop’, ‘new recording’, and rap the ‘record’ … still nothing.
I listen, recording the sounds into my memory.
I slide my fingers along the crisp glass surface, groaning in agony at the loss of the moment, my inability to capture the sounds ringing in my head with all its glorious failure, a bitter layer to the soundscape. Again, I sit quietly and listen. The climactic moment of the arrival, now mellows into a rhythm of getting things done, banging the screen, bringing things in, moving on with the day. The kids are off, scraping clean their plates, clearing them to the sink, running out to play. Someone starts the water to wash. It’s time to get up.
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Barbara London (former Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, The Museum of Modern Art) in August of 2013 opened the exhibition Soundings: A Contemporary Score. She speaks about the work by Luke Fowler and Toshiya Tsunoda, “Ridges on the Horizontal Plane”. It is an installation that features a film playing on one side of a cloth and a slide show projected on the opposite side, the cloth moving by blowing fans in the space, triggering a piano wire at the horizon line of the projections to make sounds. Fowler and Tsunoda both talk about how our memories are stored as still images. London states that “we live our lives in time, but we remember in still [images]”. So I ask, how do you form a still image of a sound memory?
Cofrin Contemporary 