Origins of Sound Installation - Report Example

Sound Culture Sound is not only a powerful, but also a contingent part of reality in most people’s lives. It is therefore, a crucial subject in various scholarly disciplines. Sound art, however, refers to a broad group of art practices that focuses on the notions of hearing, listening and sound. It is an interdisciplinary field that often encompasses such subjects as acoustics, psychoacoustics, audio media and technology, noise music and film or video. It also includes a set of subjects that form part of what is considered the current discourse of modern art. Such fields include: sociology, musicology, media studies anthropology and aesthetic studies. A major step to understanding sound art is enmeshed in discerning the following areas: the foundational concepts of a musical structure, what a piece of music are made of, how the piece is made, why the piece is made, and the mode of publication of that work. The visual and aural domains often have distinct relationships that are usually formed by perception artists. Such concepts like soundscape and auditive culture are the focus of many researchers. These concepts have been applied in the exploration of a wide variety of phenomena such as sound pollution, warfare, art application of sound in media, sales situations and in music. Moreover, this tendency has been evidenced in various theoretical movements which depict reality as a ‘world of sound.’ According to Andrew Hugill1, through the editing and imagery of the video, the structural role of rhythm and Timber are reinforced. They further contend that since images inform sound and sound also informs image, congruity between sound and image is manifested. Congruity, however, is also directly associated to the rhythm in a piece of music and image editing. The advent of new technological instruments such as computers, which have been ushered in the latter half of the 20th century, have brought a fundamental shift in the conceptualization of sound art. Instruments such as the microphone have exponentially amplified the ability to capture and manipulate sound. With the computers, the power to create sounds that initially could not be created using off-the-shelf filtering systems has been heightened. In addition, the 20th and 21st technologies, which have been evident through recording and transmissions, have played a fundamental role in shaping the ontology of sound. The current focus of recording technologies has shifted from what is perceived by the human senses to encompass a broader spectrum of noise popularly referred to as the ‘auditory real.2’ The auditory real establishes the primary level of sound and also forms the premise for contextualizing sound as a continuous yet anonymous flux which, even though proceeding and exceeding human expressions, is nevertheless a product of human expression. It is, however, also worth noting that the contemporary uses of mediated sound have significantly affected our experience of mediated sounds (Cox: ). New listening habits and changes in sound design such as the ipods and the design of music in the emerging social network sites such as last.fm and Facebook has heightened aural presence and taken it to a greater level than that previously achieved by the common media of radio, television or film. This new developments have also been predicted to have profound effects on how we experience mediated sounds in relation to other sounds. Of particular emphasis in the listening situation is our experience of the presence and absence of our audience, or in the manner in which we experience the presence of ‘mediated absent. Another contingent aspect throughout history in the development of sound art- and specifically, in the development of new music practices- has been in the ability to make distinctions about what can rightly be regarded as related to sound and that which bears semblance to other sensory modalities. This discussion has been heightened by the rapidly developing avenues for communication and artistic expression. One field that has been a source of debate is that of Art installation. Art installation has been regarded as a product of Conceptualism. This is because rather than being an art object, it seeks to be a work of art. In the musical context, it manifests as the opportunity for publication without necessarily performing. Furthermore, installation offers a different spatial forum from that offered in the traditional music performance. While it invites the listeners to actively involve themselves in creating their own spatial relationship to the piece by moving in a sequence through it, the traditional music performance, on the contrary, requires that the audience members embrace a static spatial relationship with regard to the sound produced (Aldrich, 2003) Another notable field in sound art is that of sound design which is usually evidenced in a variety of media and genres in the creation of a feeling of presence. This is often expressed by employing diegetic sounds through the role of studio audience in most fiction films and through the design of voice in music3. The here and now plays a significant role in the ‘acousmatic’ techniques of concrete music. Through direct corporation with sound recording techniques and technologies, concrete music employs intensely constructed sound objects that enliven the ear, and thus, constructs the here and now. Furthermore, through the theatrics of sonic diffusion, a unique presence is created that turns into an active musical experience, a particular time and place. From this, it can therefore be inferred that the here and now of sound, together with other ingredients of experimental music- such as the importance of the experiential and the embellishment of rhetoric of audition-sound art and other forms of audio art develop. The introduction of new and better materials into the musical lexicon has often entailed new ideas of structure and of methods for the construction of these works. This has also often resulted into innovative thinking about how the material can best be utilized to produce the best results. In the 1950’s, for instance, John Cage deviated from traditions when he introduced intentional randomization as a vital and indispensable part of the process of composition4. However, inventions and innovations have also been the source of contention in the sound art. One notion that has been held as the musical argument is that “…the musical form relates to an expressive content and is a means of creating a growing tension (Labelle)5. It has however, been argued that the anxiety created by the tension, is necessarily a positive feature. This is due to the fact that the new experimentalism leads to the development of “multiple permutations” which consist of “independent structural units”. Moreover, it has been contended that the experimental open work needs to incorporate a new variety of mental association with the music in which the listener can easily decipher “the singularity of the moment” as it is presented6. This despite the fact that musical arguments are known to characterize and to over determine sound’s inherent quality using representational “signs” that require interpretation. These arguments, which have been known to be revolving around the referentiality and meaning of music have been prone to various interpretations by different authors. While Michael Nyman argues that the classical system is in fact a system of priorities in which one thing derives its definition from its opposite and where the ordered relationships between components is set up, John Cage on the contrary, contends that indeterminate and chance oriented events overturn such prioritizing, resulting in an equal footing for both control and chaos, or sound and non sounds. In her works, Ursula Meyer contends that art itself is not to be found in the objects, but rather in the way the artist conceives the art that is expressed in the objects. Based on this premise, Cage’s works, which reflects an attempt to expunge through techniques founded on chance and indeterminacy his own authoring hand, can be said to have had the effect of making his conceptualizations explicit. In other words, Cage was deeply in control of the process through which liberation could not only be discovered but also made concrete. This is, for instance, evidenced when he resituates the terms and conditions that must fall in place before the referent of music assume social weight. He argues that the referent of music must surpass symbolic systems and strive to achieve immediacy, creating a profound effect of being there. In relying upon sound as the transcendent and ephemeral, Cage seems to implicitly suggest that sound is the ultimate, undefined materiality of all musical events in addition to serving as the contemporary vocabulary for the emerging philosophy of musical ethics. It can thus, be surmised from Cage’s philosophical projects that the credibility of sound is gained through its ability to stimulate and activate perception, temporal immediacy and social space. It also gains credibility through the potential it bears as incorporation to the music palette7. In conclusion it is therefore, worth noting that the fields of intent, structure, material and mode of publication are the some of the major areas to be considered when deciding whether a piece of music should be considered a Sound Art. Since field recordings are not merely aesthetic objects, but rather philosophical reverberant, composers have a duty to ensure that their work is a reflection of the current world operation. This harkens back to the words of John Cage whose line of questioning as manifested in his philosophies, is a direct challenge to the traditional school of thought on how a musical work ought to be structured. The uniqueness of sound art can therefore, be surmised to stem from the audible phenomena, since it is the audible phenomena that helps to reveal the virtual dimension of sound and also forms the basis for its actualization. Reference Chion, M. (1994) Audio Vision: Sound on screen.Columbia: Columbia University Press. Hugill, Andrew. The Digital Musician: Creating Music with Digital Technology. London: Published by Taylor & Francis, 2007. Labelle, B.(2006). Background noise: perspectives on sound art. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006 Wells, A., and Ernest, H. (1997). Mass media & society. London: Greenwood Publishing Group. Young, R (ed) (2002) Undercurrents:the hidden wiring of modern music. London Read More