Sound [signal] noise: significative effects in contemporary sonic art practices

Abstract

The article discusses the intricate relationship between sound and signification through notions of noise. The emergence of new fields of sonic artistic practices has generated several questions of how to approach sound as aesthetic form and material. During the past decade an increased attention has been paid to, for instance, a category such as “sound art” together with an equally strengthened interest in phenomena and concepts that fall outside the accepted aesthetic procedures and constructions of what we traditionally would term as musical sound—a recurring example being “noise”. In order to explore the effects and signifying modes of sonic material considered peripheral to established musicological methodologies, other types of discourses have appeared. The aim of this article is to investigate and evaluate such discourses of the sonic arts and to do so from the perspective of a continuum between sound and noise. It is moreover suggested that we consider sound in relation to the concept of “signal” which is exemplified through analysis of actual works.Thomas Bøgevald Bjørnsten is a Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Aesthetics and Communication, Aarhus University. His current dissertation project investigates the role of silence and noise as transmedial phenomena—a topic on which he has published a number of articles, for instance: “Ohört märkbara—om infraljudens gränstillstånd” (Nutida Musik, Nr. 3, 2009, s. 5–11) and “Resounding Catastrophe: Auditory Perspectives on 9/11” (in: The Cultural Life of Catastrophes and Crises, De Greuyter Verlag, 2012 [in press]). He is also a regular contributor to various journals and magazines, writing primarily about experimental music and sound art.