Abstract
Noise is a complex category that has been used to describe instances of disturbance and disruption in technical vocabulary and in many artistic languages. In music, and more precisely, in sound art, noise has been imbued with specific significations that operate as aesthetical signifiers that convey meaning even beyond its intensity of volume. In this article, the theoretical aspects of noise are articulated through the analysis of concerning discourse around the transformations of the concept of sound, which ultimately resulted in the designation of a genre in itself – noise. Furthermore, it is through the enhancement of a ‘sonic turn’ that the notion of listening as a generative aesthetic practice has referred to the body as the main instance of meaning construction in relation to both time and space.
Highlights
Noise is a complex category that has been used to describe instances of disturbance and disruption in technical vocabulary and in many artistic languages
The concept of sound has gravitated from music towards sound art practices, operating a transition from an abstract conception – notes, melody, scales, harmony – in the direction of a materialistic approach that focuses on its concrete empirical aspects, becoming an object of theoretical investigation as much as an aesthetical endeavor
There is a twofold theoretical aspect about noise that is poetically significant: the noise decreases the precision of the processes and, still, several forms of noise are intrinsic, originating from the very existence of the devices
Summary
Sound art is a relatively broad term that encompasses artworks which resignify the sound phenomenon within interdisciplinary investigations on auditory material and listening practices. Within musicology broadly defined – including ethnomusicology, popular music studies, and historical musicology – scholarships concerning the sonic have exploded in recent years This ‘sonic turn’ has simultaneously been a turn to the technological: the technologies of music production, reproduction, and consumption, and the technological practices of musicians, sound engineers, producers, and listeners Sound as art is the sonic phenomenon dislodged from its place as a predominantly musical signifier, in an attempt to declare the potentialities of its material existence as a means to an expansion of notions around time, space and the body In this realm, it is the theoretical articulation of the activity of listening that will enable a distinction between the perception of sound and its sensation as experience. As Robert Francès asserts, “if one adopts a biological definition of perception phrased in terms of its adaptive value, one ends by conferring on object perception a pragmatic and utilitarian stability, which, in contrast, relegates the contents of the perception of art to a disembodied state” (FRANCÈS, 2014, p.15)
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