Sound Installation Research Articles

Sound Installation and Time: Becoming, Place, and the Case for Performance

SOUND INSTALLATION AND TIME: BECOMING, PLACE, AND THE CASE FOR PERFORMANCE WILLIAM DAVY COLE AX NEUHAUS COINED THE TERM “sound installation” in the late 1960s to refer specifically to “sound works without a beginning or an end, where the sounds [are] placed in space rather than time” (Neuhaus 1994, 42). He conceived of the sound installation as a permanent or semi-permanent art form, “related completely to [its] location” (ibid.), predicated upon the principle of “removing sound from time, and setting it, instead, in place” (Neuhaus, quoted in Cox 2006; 2011, 83). “The important idea about this kind of work,” he declared, is that “it doesn’t exist in time” (ibid., 84). More recently, broader definitions of sound installation art have been proposed that reflect the diversity of creative approaches to have emerged in the wake of Neuhaus’s pioneering aesthetic project. One such definition is offered by Gascia Ouzounian, who describes sound installation as, spatially-organized sound works, and, by extension, as sound works that privilege concepts and experiences of space and place. In my M 12 Perspectives of New Music definition, sound installations may be site-specific or not (they may even be mobile, moving from site to site); they may include performance , recording, or broadcasting elements; they may be installed across multiple spaces and times (real, virtual, and imagined); they may be installed in galleries, museums, electronic networks, and in myriad non-traditional spaces (parks, elevators, subways, bodies, and so on). (Ouzounian 2008, 33; original emphasis) Under this definition, Neuhaus’s brand of sound installation practice can be seen as just one amongst an indefinite number of potential strategies for producing “sound works that privilege concepts and experiences of space and place.” Avoiding Neuhaus’s dichotomization of the time and the space of sound, and making no reference to the notions of timelessness that he posited at the heart of sound installation ’s framework, Ouzounian’s definition accounts for the possibility of ephemeral sound installations, and for sound installation practices that deal with temporal as well as spatial relations. Her expanded model thus encompasses sonic practices that seek to engage Neuhaus’s aesthetic principles beyond the restrictive terms that he himself put forward, terms that this essay sets out to show are inherently misleading. Through an analysis of sound installation’s aesthetic intentionality, it will aim to reveal the centrality of time within the structures of this art form and to present the case for a time-based performance sound installation practice that tackles these underlying questions of temporality head-on. SOUND WORKS WITHOUT BEGINNING OR END With his definition of sound installation art, Neuhaus sought to clearly demarcate his sonic practice from music, drawing clear distinctions between music as a temporal art form and sound installation as an art form set in place. I don’t make sound events in time; I don’t make a series of sound events in time, which progress in time. You don’t come to a sound work of mine at the beginning and leave at the end; that is a basic definition of music. . . . In music the sound is the work and in what I do the sound is the means of making the work, the means of transforming space into place. (Neuhaus 1994, 130) For Neuhaus, sound installation marked a break away from the “codified sound language” (ibid., 129) of musical narrative, and its Sound Installation and Time 13 concomitant culture of concert-hall listening, and towards working with sound as means of opening listening up to wider questions of context and situatedness. Eschewing the singular locus of the musical object, Neuhaus drew his practice “into the purview of the visual arts” (ibid., 42), where during the late 1960s and early 1970s installation art was gaining momentum and finding definition as a category of artistic practice that “rejects concentration on one object in favour of consideration of the relationships between a number of elements or of the interaction between things and their contexts” (de Oliveira, Oxley, and Petry 1994, 8). Times Square (1977–1992, 2002–present), installed on a pedestrian island in the heart of New York City, epitomizes Neuhaus’s sound installation aesthetic. From beneath a metal...

Sound Installation and Time: Becoming, Place, and the Case for Performance

Sound Installation and Time: Becoming, Place, and the Case for Performance

Message from the Guest Editors

It is the great honor for me to edit proceedings of “6th World Conference on Design and Arts (WCDA 2017), 29 June–1 July 2017, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia. This privileged scientific event has been contributing to the field of educational research for six years. As the guest editor of this issue, I am glad to see variety of articles focusing on Art Management, Art and Corporate Identiy, Art and Media, Art and Advertising Design, Art and Globalization, Civil Society and Art, Community Arts, Experimental Typography, Fashion Design, Game Design and Cinema, Game Design and Art, Gastoronomy and Art, Industrial Design, Interactive Arts, Interactive Sound Design, Interior Design, Jewelry Design, New Media for Learning and Teaching, Packaging Design, Performing Arts, Sonic Sculptures, Sound Installations, Teacher Training, The Science of Arts, Typeface Design, Urban Culture and Art, Visual Culture and Art, etc.. Furthermore, the conference is getting more international each year, which is an indicator that it is getting world widely known and recognized. Scholars from all over the world contribute to the conference. Special thanks are to all the reviewers, the members of the international editorial board, the publisher, and those involved in technical processes. We would like to thank all who contributed to every process to make this issue actualized. A total of 88 full papers or abstracts were submitted for this conference and each paper has been peer reviewed by the reviewers specialized in the related field. At the end of the review process, a total of 37 high quality research papers were selected and accepted for publication. I hope that you will enjoy reading the papers. Best Regards

Invisible guests: A sound installation in a Montréal community restaurant

Invité.e.s invisibles (Invisible Guests) is a sound installation created in collaboration with a community restaurant that provides affordable meals to a disadvantaged population in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, a former industrial neighbourhood in Montréal. Recorded conversations were made available for patrons who were eating alone, with the hope of breaking the social isolation experienced by some. By listening to the conversations on headphones as they were eating, patrons could virtually encounter other members of the community and engage with their concerns through hearing their stories. This is a first step toward group socialization for those who find it hard to communicate in person, and yet are eager to "share" their meals. Invité.e.s invisibles est une installation sonore créée en collaboration avec un restaurant communautaire qui offre des repas abordables à une population défavorisée dans Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, un ancien quartier industriel de Montréal. Des conversations enregistrées étaient mises à la disposition de personnes venant y manger seules, dans l'espoir de rompre avec l'isolation que certain.e.s peuvent ressentir. Les conversations étaient diffusées sur des écouteurs que les gens pouvaient porter tout en prenant leur repas, ce qui leur permettait de rencontrer virtuellement d'autres membres de la communauté. En écoutant leurs récits, elles et ils pouvaient s'y reconnaître et se sentir investi.e.s des mêmes préoccupations. Cette installation pouvait servir de première étape vers la socialisation pour celles et ceux qui ont de la difficulté à communiquer en personne, mais qui désirent néanmoins «partager» leurs repas. Photo Credit:Invisible Guests. A participant listens to the sound installation at Le Chic Resto Pop. Photo par Patrick Ma. 2015. / Invité.e.s invisibles. Un participant à l'écoute de l'installation sonore au Chic Resto Pop. Photo par Patrick Ma. 2015.

Updating the History of Sound Art: Additions, Clarifications, More Questions

The author takes a close look at the origins of the terms sound art and sound installation, identifying additional historical sources and addressing misconceptions about their origins. The author then focuses on two early sound works by Max Neuhaus, a sound art pioneer who is frequently said to be the creator of the first sound installation.

The Cadolzburg Experience: On the Use of Sound in a Historical Museum

The museum at Cadolzburg Castle in Germany, opened in 2017, uses a sound installation to present aspects of the building’s history that could not be materially reconstructed. In this article, the curators and the sound artist explain how the installation alternates between sound effects and musical signifiers to engage visitors with their environment and to spark reflection on the problems of “authenticity” in museums. While the musical thread offers quotes from musical styles representing the castle’s history, the sound thread gradually deconstructs a “castle soundscape” inspired by film soundtracks.

LOOP: A Circular Ferric Memory in Slow Decline

The author describes the manipulation of time and memory in his work LOOP, a tape-based sound installation started in 2004.

Times Square: Strategies and Contingencies of Preserving Sonic Art

The author traces the artistic and institutional complexities of preserving sonic art. He situates these problems in an analysis of the iconic public sound installation Times Square (1977–1992; 2002–present), which was constructed in an abandoned subway ventilation chamber by sonic artist Max Neuhaus (1939–2009). Next, the author describes how it aided a revitalization of the Times Square district but fell into disrepair and was dismantled in 1992. The author then describes a 2002 reconstruction that incorporated long-term speculative self-preservation strategies. Finally, the author discusses the acquisition of Times Square by the Dia Art Foundation, highlighting challenges that circumscribe preserving sonic art.

Shouting in the Library: the Radical Voices season at the University of London’s Senate House Library

From its inception, the University of London has defined itself in opposition to the classical elitism of pre-Victorian academia. Described by Dickens as ‘the people’s university’, its founding principles emphasized social inclusion, the betterment of the individual through education and the contributions to the national economy of innovation, invention and hard work. The university’s central research library at Senate House holds a unique corpus of 18 th - to 20 th -century radical political collections, among which is the library of the Family Welfare Association, with its ground-breaking campaigning around disability, prison conditions, public health and child poverty. Senate House Library and the Institute of Historical Research hosted a season of public and online exhibitions, ‘radical walks’, talks, film screenings and sound installations between January and March 2017, which saw contemporary radical thinkers Ken Loach and Ron Heisler connecting with their predecessors, through their book and manuscript legacies, to tell accessible stories and encourage new audiences into dialogue with ‘the people’s university’. This article explores the successes, challenges and lessons learned from the programme, while the events themselves brought new audiences in to encounter the history of protest and reform in a notoriously inaccessible space.

Soundmapping as critical cartography: Engaging publics in listening to the environment

There is a kind of growing new media practice of capturing and mapping sound and an emergent global community of listeners interested in engaging with sounds of the environment, urban space, habitats and biospheres. Between user-driven Instagramming our everyday audio-visual experiences and professionally curated sound installations, there is an emergent space and a global audience for listening to ‘soundmaps’ of local and global environments. Sometimes interlinked and sometimes disparate, these communities connect to wider communities of practice and (environmental) activism in the context of social media, new media production and participatory cultures. There are also growing research initiatives that take up soundmapping as a way of inquiring into pressing spatial, geo-political and cultural issues primarily in cities and also in the endangered wilds. Interest in sound in a variety of interdisciplinary fields has grown exponentially over the last few decades. This article will externalize and analyse the frames of several emergent communities and their organizing themes as nascent in new media culture, and social networks specifically, as they intersect with phonography, creative soundmaking and ‘citizen science. By pointing out normative logics embedded in the practice of soundmapping, I then work towards a language of critical soundmapping by way of three examples that I suggest function as alternative forms of representation of and communication about sound environments: (1) the curated initiative Cities and Memory, (2) the creative research project London Sound Survey and (3) the climate change project Biosphere Soundscapes.

Beak Disorder: A Sound and Sculpture Installation

This paper discusses Leslie Sharpe’s sound and sculpture installation project “Beak Disorder,” exhibited at Manizales, Columbia for Balance-Unbalance 2016. The work addresses how anthropogenic climate change may be affecting birds in the Pacific Northwest regions of Canada and the United States. “Beak Disorder” is a project that references an unexplained condition documented in birds in the Northwest of Canada and Alaska called “avian keratin disorder” where the bird’s beak becomes distorted and elongated. The work includes a series of 3D printed distorted beaks as well as a sound piece and web component.

Electroacoustic Feedback and the Emergence of Sound Installation: Remarks on a line of flight in the live electronic music by Alvin Lucier and Max Neuhaus

Reflecting upon Max Neuhaus’s and Alvin Lucier’s first electronic works on electroacoustic feedback, I will consider how their research into live electronic music, meant to be performed on stage, announced a whole other form of creation, which was paradoxically emancipated from the concert hall and essential to the emergence of sound art: sound installations. If both musicians first appropriated the electronic medium for its possibilities in sound transformation, it appears that these experimentations, and more precisely those using feedback, quickly extended into areas other than research on tone and the live dimension of electronic performances. Indeed, electroacoustic feedback, as a phenomenon of retroaction, goes beyond the mere relationship to the instrument: by manifesting itself in the looping of the electroacoustic chain (microphone-amplification-speakers), it straightaway inscribes the electronic device in a spatial dimension that is linked to the propagation of sound. By analysing Neuhaus’s and Lucier’s first experiments with feedback, the specificities of their apparatuses and the experiences they aimed to create and foster, this article wishes to question the role these experiments played in the emergence of both musicians’ concern with space, which is at the core of any understanding of their later works. We can then re-read their contribution to the history of live electronic music in the light of both bifurcations and lines of flight inherent in their respective bodies of work, in order to look into the emergence of a certain art of sound installation, in which the liveness of live electronic music, far from being pushed aside, seems to lead into other forms of creation and specific aesthetic questions.

Playing the Gallery. Time, Space and the Digital in Brian Eno’s Recent Installation Music

This essay considers the sound installation work of the British multimedia artist Brian Eno. Focusing on Eno’s so-called ‘ambient’ music, the essay asks to what extent this work can be read as an aesthetic intervention in contemporary cultures of musical listening that are driven and shaped by the instantaneous availability of music in digital formats. His sound installation 12 Seasons, written for the ‘Great Gallery’ of the Palace of Venaria Reala in Turin, is marked by slowly evolving melodic structures and textures that imply a culture of sustained listening. However, the installation process also saw Eno personally involved in the adaptation of the pre-recorded music to the acoustic properties of the gallery: this created a listening experience that could only be fully appreciated in the space for which the music was composed, given that the sound evolved as visitors moved through the gallery. Examining Eno’s compositional technique, installation practice and its underpinning musical theory, the essay asks to what extent 12 Seasons and similar works offer a spatially variable listening experience, which critiques the present trend of accessing music through lo-fidelity digital files and re-enforces the need for attentive listening over extended time. It asks, further, whether Eno is thus making a wider artistic protest against the contemporary hyper-consumption of cultural products, criticized by contemporary sociologists, which seems to value the acquisition of new aesthetic material over sustained engagement with it.

Shared spaces: Artistic methods for collaborative works

Abstract Teatr Weimar is a performing arts collective founded in 2003 and located in Malmö, Sweden. The group brings together playwrights, directors, actors, musicians and other artists to explore the boundaries and expressive potential of contemporary performing arts. The works of the collective are syntheses of traditional and experimental theatre, new music theatre, concert music, radiophonic art, video art and sound installations. The approach and practice of integrating different art forms and genres are vastly diverse. This article will discuss a number of terms, concepts and methods that have emerged out of the body of works as essential tools for the collaborative artistic processes.

Leonardo Gallery: Scientific Delirium Madness 3.0

June 01 2017 Leonardo Gallery: Scientific Delirium Madness 3.0 David Bowen, David Bowen Email: davidbowenart@gmail.com, Website: www.dwbowen.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Asa Calow, Asa Calow Email: asa@madlab.org.uk Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Matteo Farinella, Matteo Farinella Email: matteo.farinella@gmail.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Christine Metzger, Christine Metzger Email: christineametzger@gmail.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar John MacCallum, John MacCallum Email: john.m@ccallum.com, Website: http://john-maccallum.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Teoma J. Naccarato, Teoma J. Naccarato Email: teoma@naccarato.org, Website: http://www.naccarato.org/dance Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Laura Boudou, Laura Boudou Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Stacey Pelinka, Stacey Pelinka Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Juanita Rockwell, Juanita Rockwell Email: juanitarockwell108@gmail.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Hannah Star Rogers, Hannah Star Rogers Email: hsr2120@columbia.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Maja Spasova, Maja Spasova Email: majaspasova@hotmail.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Adam Zaretsky Adam Zaretsky Email: vastalschool@gmail.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information David Bowen Email: davidbowenart@gmail.com, Website: www.dwbowen.com Asa Calow Email: asa@madlab.org.uk Matteo Farinella Email: matteo.farinella@gmail.com Christine Metzger Email: christineametzger@gmail.com John MacCallum Email: john.m@ccallum.com, Website: http://john-maccallum.com Teoma J. Naccarato Email: teoma@naccarato.org, Website: http://www.naccarato.org/dance Laura Boudou Stacey Pelinka Juanita Rockwell Email: juanitarockwell108@gmail.com Hannah Star Rogers Email: hsr2120@columbia.edu Maja Spasova Email: majaspasova@hotmail.com Adam Zaretsky Email: vastalschool@gmail.com Online Issn: 1530-9282 Print Issn: 0024-094X ©2017 ISAST2017 Leonardo (2017) 50 (3): 236–245. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01422 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation David Bowen, Asa Calow, Matteo Farinella, Christine Metzger, John MacCallum, Teoma J. Naccarato, Laura Boudou, Stacey Pelinka, Juanita Rockwell, Hannah Star Rogers, Maja Spasova, Adam Zaretsky; Leonardo Gallery: Scientific Delirium Madness 3.0. Leonardo 2017; 50 (3): 236–245. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01422 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsLeonardo Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. ©2017 ISAST2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Supplementary data TODAY, sequence1TODAY is a sound installation based on multiple voices and random dates from past, present and future. Several channels of nonlinear time fragmented to presumably exact entities, slowly create a volume of information, finally to dissolve into an absence of time. Here is one of the 36 sequences. (© 2016, Maja Spasova)- wav file BEGINNING, 1Series of four sculptures, clay and ceramic glaze. (© 2016, Maja Spasova)- jpeg file CALLING YOUR NAMEThe film was shot during several séances with fellows and visitors of Djerassi. After a short presentation of the idea and a few words of instruction, the participants created their own interpretation. The choreography was unpredictable with a surprising outcome. Flow, multitude and mobility became the characteristics of this work. (© 2016, Maja Spasova)- jpeg file You do not currently have access to this content.

Sound, Space and Bodies: Building Relations in the Work of Invisible Flock and Atelier Bildraum

In this article, I discuss sounds potential to construct fictional spaces and build relations between bodies using two performance installations as case studies. The first is Invisible Flock’s 105+dB, a site-specific sound work which transports crowd recordings of a soccer match to alternative geographical locations. The second is Atelier Bildraum’s Bildraum, an installation performance using live photography, architectural models and ambient sound. By writing through these two works, I question how sound builds relations between bodies and across space as well as questioning the role of site within sound installation works.

Bill Fontana’s Distant Trains: A documentation of an acoustic relocation

Witnessing a sound installation in person offers an opportunity to experience the qualities and elements of a work first hand and in full, multisensory effect. A thorough documentation of an exhibition and the work that goes into it is at the essence of preserving important information for future generations. Though information can be gathered from archives, some works of sound art are only marginally presented in the literature, making it difficult to fully grasp aspects of an artist’s technical, organisational and, most particularly, creative ways of working. Instead, already existing information is often reproduced. Previous documentation regarding Bill Fontana’s Sound Sculpture Distant Trains, exhibited in Berlin in 1984, offers an example of the possible loss of key details. This article aims to present new research findings that will examine and illuminate the full scope of this artistic project.

Context-based Composition in an Interdisciplinary Collaborative Framework

This article describes two site-specific sound installations conceived as part of interdisciplinary collaborations which aimed to explore different acoustic and perceptual features of urban and rural landscapes. The creative process involved in the design and implementation of both installations is described, focusing on the organic montage techniques based on spatial and temporal features of field recording methods. Future developments of the works will consider ways of developing further spatial-temporal sampling methods to assess particular features of soundscapes by panels of trained listeners.

EarTaxi Festival, Chicago

I so wanted to write something about how extraordinary, how diverse, how friendly, the New Music community in Chicago and environs is. About how righteous [Augusta Read Thomas's] decision was to focus on this remarkably expansive midwestern meta-alt-community. About how good the music is, and will be, and the performers and their performances. About the unique pleasure of unanticipated audition. But it is now mid-July, and the old Brecht line about ‘these times’ coils my mind like a childish superstition: ‘A conversation about trees is almost a crime’.Seth Brodsky, EarTaxi Programme Book This review of the EarTaxi Festival, a beautiful, vibrant, kaleidoscope of events that celebrated New Music from every corner of Chicago in six days in October 2016, was written on 10 November 2016. There were 32 events featuring more than 350 Chicago musicians performing music by 88 Chicago composers. The festival gave 54 World Premieres, and included five sound installations, a colloquium from George Lewis, numerous panel discussions and countless drinks and meals with friends old and new throughout the week. But at the moment of writing, as I was casting my mind back over the concerts, many of the same musicians and composers were outside Trump Tower in Chicago, protesting the election of a man elected on a platform that demonised, belittled and threatened the very idea of a community and festival built on diversity, the global-nature of music-making and inclusion.

3rd Kochi-Muziris Biennale

KOCHI, INDIA DECEMBER 12,2016-MARCH 29, 2017 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With exhibitions spanning twelve venues and showing work by over one hundred regional and international artists, Kochi-Muziris Biennale is deservedly recognized as the largest platform for visual arts engagement in Southeast Asia. (1) Artist Sudarshan Shetty curated Biennale (his first curatorial project) and has sensitively and adroitly selected and positioned a compelling array of contemporary work across a wide variety of media, including painting, sculpture, video art, sound art, and performance art. According to Shetty, Biennale--subtitled Forming in Pupil of an Eye--is an assembly and layering of realities that offers possibility for connections between spaces of and multiple other consciousnesses. (2) This approach seems appropriate for first and only biennial held in India, a country long associated with spiritual and meditative practices intended to facilitate such bridging of reality with higher consciousness. Aspinwall House, a sprawling sea-front compound that was originally headquarters of a nineteenth-century English trading company, is venue for majority of works in Biennale and location where most visitors will begin their experience of event. A number of artists represented at Aspinwall House have created works that respond to site's historical associations and its orientation toward fishing and shipping harbors of Kochi. The placement of Camille Norment's haptic sound installation Prime (2016) offers a particularly compelling example of this synergy. This deceptively simple piece consists of five wooden benches placed in a large, empty warehouse space with a view onto a pier jutting into harbor. As visitors enter room they are enveloped by a low, almost rumbling, chorus of voices--not singing, per se, but chanting and moaning, creating a sound that ebbs and flows like water outside. When one sits on a bench, experience of work is completed as voices' vibrations are transmitted through one's body, engaging viewer physically with hypnotic tones. The work becomes meditative, viewer at one with sound, water, and sensation. Another work that engages sea-front location of Aspinwall House and its historical association with trade routes through both placement and content is Pedro Gomez-Egana's Aphelion (2016). This mixed-media installation is also placed in a room facing harbor; yet rather than offering an immediate view of water, as viewers enter and take their seats an attendant draws curtains across windows and turns out lights, plunging room into complete blackness. Slowly, a circular image is projected that morphs into sun and moon and appears and disappears in lapping waves. The soundtrack for work speaks, in a low, rhythmic voice, of ships and water and sea. The voice intones, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes poetically (salt waters, silt waters, mud waters), and sometimes with references to warships and other vessels linked to both history and myth. Toward end of presentation, a roll of paper extending toward audience begins to ripple and move. At same time, narrative compares water to a snake, describing a connection between waves of sea and wavelike movement of a snake, which is visually echoed by rippling paper. As presentation ends, doors are flung open and light fills room. Other installations at Aspinwall House are less connected to particular location and history of venue, but nonetheless reference mythology and landscape in ways that reflect Biennale theme of connecting lived experience with other realities. Chittrovanu Mazumdar's large-scale sculpture and video installation, River of Ideas (2016), draws on river of Hades as well as Ganges to reflect on role of rivers as spaces of journey, of immersion, and of transition, to create an environment that encourages viewer to move beyond physical experience and to connect that experience to abstract thoughts and reflections. …