Sound art
Related terms: Klangkunst, sound installation (since late 1960s), Klanginstallation, sound-space-art (Leitner c1971 [1]), sound sculpture (see Grayson 1975), Klangskulptur, sound walk, sonic art (see Wishart 1985), musicalization of sound (see Lander 1990), sound in the arts (see Kahn 1999), audio art (see Föllmer 2004), Audiokunst, sound in art.
Contents
Pages
The following is a growing list of artists, events and initiatives that have presented works of art with sound as their constituent means of expression.
- +3dB
- Peter Ablinger
- Milan Adamčiak
- Luis Alvarado
- Miguel Álvarez-Fernández
- Maryanne Amacher
- Laurie Anderson
- Andras Blazsek
- Audio Gruppe
- Audio Scene '79
- AudioHyperspace
- Sam Auinger
- AUT
- André Avelãs
- Younes Baba-Ali
- Magali Babin
- Ain Bailey
- Natasha Barrett
- Baschet Brothers
- Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
- Bb15
- Béchard Hudon
- Justin Bennett
- Harry Bertoia
- Myriam Bleau
- René Block
- Ursula Block
- Fari Bradley
- Tania Candiani
- Janet Cardiff
- Kabir Carter
- Daniela Cascella
- André Castro
- Raquel Castro
- Central European Network for Sonic Ecologies
- Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
- Roz Cheney
- Giuseppe Chiari
- Lin Chiwei
- City Sonic
- Nicolas Collins
- Martine H. Crispo
- Florencia Curci
- Robert Curgenven
- Alvin Curran
- Peter Cusack
- Paul DeMarinis
- Bill Dietz
- David Dunn
- Lloyd Dunn
- Lina Džuverović
- E/static
- Echo City
- Espen Sommer Eide
- Jessica Ekomane
- Eleonora Oreggia
- Ephemeral Sustainability
- Extrapool
- Festival for Applied Acoustics
- Flanders Festival Kortrijk
- Bill Fontana
- Carlo Fossati
- Jez riley French
- Anna Friz
- Ellen Fullman
- Marco Fusinato
- Bernhard Gál
- Christian Galarreta
- Raviv Ganchrow
- Richard Garet
- Gelbe Musik
- Generation Z
- GEZ-21
- Sanne Krogh Groth
- Heidi Grundmann
- Jonáš Gruska
- Milan Grygar
- John Grzinich
- Göteborg Art Sounds
- Yolande Harris
- Hanna Hartman
- Her Noise
- Felix Hess
- Het Apollohuis
- Marla Hlady
- Hannes Hoelzl
- The Hole Gallery
- Derek Holzer
- Cat Hope
- Phoebe Hui
- Ryoji Ikeda
- Institute for Sonic Arts Research
- Institute of Sonology
- Intro in situ
- Inventionen
- IRZU
- Manuel Rocha Iturbide
- David Jacobs
- Arsenije Jovanović
- Jérôme Joy
- Phil Julian
- Rolf Julius
- Douglas Kahn
- Christine Sun Kim
- Nicolaj Kirisits
- Jacob Kirkegaard
- Elvar Mar Kjartansson
- Klangkustfest
- Klingt.org
- Milan Knížák
- Konstmusiksystrar
- Kontakte
- Katarzyna Krakowiak
- Christina Kubisch
- Roland Kuit
- Kunstradio
- Peter Kutin
- Slavek Kwi
- Joan La Barbara
- Brandon LaBelle
- Katalin Ladik
- LAK Festival
- Dan Lander
- Cathy Lane
- Jørgen Larsson
- Ray Lee
- Bernhard Leitner
- Signe Lidén
- Kajsa Lindgren
- Lisboa Soa
- Edwin Lo
- Annea Lockwood
- Barbara London
- Francisco López
- Trond Lossius
- Alvin Lucier
- Lydgalleriet
- John Macedo
- Peter Machajdík
- Christian Marclay
- Stuart Marshall
- Reinhold Pieper Marxhausen
- Kaffe Matthews
- Charles Mattox
- Benoît Maubrey
- Víctor Mazón
- Radboud Mens
- Christof Migone
- Mileece
- Robin Minard
- Helga de la Motte-Haber
- Michal Murin
- Rie Nakajima
- Nendú
- Anne Hilde Neset
- Netaudio
- Max Neuhaus
- Daniel Neumann
- New Radio and Performing Arts
- Phill Niblock
- Carsten Nicolai
- Atle Selnes Nielsen
- NK
- Arne Nordheim
- Nordic Sound Art
- Katharine Norman
- Camille Norment
- Alberto Novello
- NyMusikk
- Jonas Olesen
- Hans Otte
- Gascia Ouzounian
- Overtoon
- Paul Panhuysen
- Maria Papadomanolaki
- Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri
- Harry Partch
- Rubén Patiño
- Susan Philipsz
- Liz Phillips
- Phonofemme
- Per Platou
- PNEM
- Gert-Jan Prins
- Q-O2
- RadiaLx
- Karim Rafi
- Reboot.fm
- Resonance
- Resonanzen
- Martins Rokis
- Jøran Rudi
- Søs Gunver Ryberg
- Aura Satz
- Tomoko Sauvage
- Scanner
- Janek Schaefer
- R. Murray Schafer
- Matija Schellander
- Jean-Robert Sedano and Solveig de Ory
- Carsten Seiffarth
- La Semaine du Son
- Nobuhisa Shimoda
- Singuhr Hoergalerie
- Skálar
- Walter Smetak
- Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits
- Rune Søchting
- Morten Søndergaard
- Sonambiente
- Sonic Arts Research Centre
- Sonic Arts Union
- Sonica
- SONM Archive
- Sound around Kaliningrad
- Soundcamp/Reveil
- SoundFjord
- Sounds. Radio – Art – New Music
- Staalplaat
- STEIM
- Steklenik
- Akio Suzuki
- Kent Tankred
- Pär Thörn
- Thorolf Thuestad
- Yasunao Tone
- David Toop
- Transcultures
- Trimpin
- Andreas Trobollowitsch
- Tsonami
- Toshiya Tsunoda
- UbuWeb
- Ultra-red
- Tetsuya Umeda
- Maia Urstad
- Edwin van der Heide
- Anette Vandsø
- Marco Vanoppen
- Mario de Vega
- Elin Øyen Vister
- Stephen Vitiello
- Salomé Voegelin
- Peter Vogel
- Carl Michael von Hausswolff
- Stephan von Huene
- Changcun Wang
- Hong-Kai Wang
- Weis Ward
- Hildegard Westerkamp
- Dan Wilson
- Jana Winderen
- Mark Peter Wright
- John Wynne
- Xchange
- Zhongqi Xie
- Dajuin Yao
- Yeung Yang
- Samson Young
Compilations
- Sound Sculptures, Wergo, 1985, 2-LP. Curated by Klaus Hinrich Stahmer.
- From The Pages Of Experimental Musical Instruments series, 8 volumes, Experimental Musical Instruments, 1986-1993. Cassettes. Curated by Bart Hopkins.
- Tellus 24: FluxTellus, 1990. Cassette.
See also the sections Magazines, Catalogues and Monographs below.
Bibliography
Publications on individual artists are included in their respective pages. For further bibliographies see also the entries on Radio art, Sound poetry, Electroacoustic music, Field recording, Noise and Sound studies (all in development).
![]() | How to contribute. The following bibliography is made to be an online reader on sound art as well. A number of included publications is already available online thanks to the publishers, fans, researchers or authors themselves, however we are still missing many of the early writings, the out of print and hard to find catalogues, journals and monographs. You are greatly welcome to contribute to the reader by uploading any missing scans to the wiki or contacting the editor (db at monoskop dot org). Suggestions for omitted works are also appreciated. |
Journals and Magazines
- Sound Image: A Magazine of Aural and Visual Arts, 3 volumes, Deerfield, MA: Sound Image Inc., 1975-77. LP-magazine. Published by Jim Metzner. Volume 1, [2].
- The Wire, London, since 1982.
- Essays in Sound, eds. Shaun Davies, Annemarie Jonson, et al., Newtown, NSW: Contemporary Sound Arts, 1992; 1995; 1996; 1999.
- Sound Arts: Xebec SoundCulture Membership Magazine, Kobe: Xebec Corporation, since 1994.
- Acoustic Space, eds. Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits, et al., Riga: E-Lab and Xchange Network, quasi-annually since 1998. (in English/Latvian) [3] [4]
- Hz, ed. Sachiko Hayashi, Stockholm: Fylkingen, since 2000. Online open-access journal. [5]
- China: the Sonic Avant-Garde, 2 issues, 2005-2006. (in Chinese)
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Catalogues
- Germano Celant, The Record as Artwork: From Futurism to Conceptual Art, Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1977, 121 pp. (in English/French) [6] [7]
- Sound: An Exhibition of Sound Sculpture, Instrument Building and Acoustically Tuned Spaces, Pasadena, CA: Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, 1979, 68 pp. Catalogue for a large-scale exhibition curated by Robert Smith and Robert Wilhite and held at Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, 14 July-31 August 1979, and Project Studios 1, New York, 30 September-18 November 1979. [8]
- René Block, Lorenz Dombois, Nele Herltling, Barbara Volkmann (eds.), Für Augen und Ohren. Von der Spieluhr zum akustischen Environment. Objekte. Installationen. Performances, Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 1980, 312 pp. (in German). Catalogue for a large-scale exhibition curated by Nele Hertling and René Block. [9] [10]
- Écouter par les yeux: Objets et environnements sonores, Paris: Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, with Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 1980, 144 pp. (in French). Catalogue for an exhibition held on 18 June-24 August 1980 at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Essays by Suzanne Pagé, Franck Popper, René Block. Oeuvres de Laurie Anderson, Ben, Beuys, John Cage, Robert Filiou, Kienholz, Kounellis, Man Ray, B. Lavier, D. Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Sarkis, Erik Satie, Takis, Vostell, Robert Watts. [11]
- Franco Masotti (ed.), Sonorità prospettiche: suono, ambiente, immagine / Perspectival Sonorities: Sound, Environment, Image, Rimini: Il Comune editions, 1982, 183 pp. (in Italian/English, introduction also in German). Catalogue for an exhibition dedicated to Athanasius Kircher, curated by Franco Masotti and held on 30 January-15 March 1982 in Rimini. Exhibition review.
- Vito Acconci, William Hellermann, Don Goddard, Sound/Art, New York: The Foundation, 1984, 29 pp. With an essay by Don Goddard. Exhibition curated by William Hellermann and held simultaneously at SculptureCenter’s former location on East 69th Street in Manhattan and the Brooklyn Arts and Cultural Association (now Brooklyn Arts Council). [12]
- Paul Panhuysen (ed.), ECHO: The Images of Sound, Eindoven: Het Apollohuis, 1986, 144 pp. [13]
- Sound Re Visited: An Anthology Concerning Sound in Art / Geluid Her Zien: Een Anthologie Over Geluid in Kunst, Amsterdam: VOID, 1987, 48+51 pp. Exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with "Sound 'Re' Visited," a festival on sound in the visual arts, held in nine Amsterdam venues, 7-29 April 1987. Texts by Ursula Block, Germano Celant, Hetty Huisman, Harry Ruhé, William Furlong, Gerald Lindahl and Louwrien Wijers. (in English/Dutch) [14]
- ECHO. The Images Of Sound II, Apollo Records, 1987. CD with 38-page booklet. From a festival held in Eindhoven from 1 May to 14 June 1987. [15] [16]
- Ars Electronica: Free Sound / Der freie Klang, 1987. (in German). Catalogue for the festival held on 16-19 September 1987 in Linz.
- Ursula Block, Michael Glasmeier (eds.), Broken Music: Artists' Recordworks, Berlin: DAAD Galerie and gelbe Musik, 1989, 279 pp. (in English, French, German). Catalogue for an exhibition held at daad galerie Berlin, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, and Magasin Grenoble. Writings about vinyl by Block, Adorno, Moholy-Nagy, Dubuffet and others. A discography of recordings by visual artists and experimental audioworks. [17] [18]
- Dan Lander, Micah Lexier (eds.), Sound by Artists, Toronto: Art Metropole and Walter Phillips Gallery, 1990; Blackwood Gallery and Charivari Press, 2013, 372 pp. A collection of artists writings including Cage, Viola, Neuhaus, Kubisch, Bruinsma, Monahan, Lucier, Whitehead, Schafer, Lockwood, Westerkamp, Marclay. Introduction, Discography, Essay by Bill Viola, Book excerpts (video), [19]. Essays on sound art by writers and artists including John Cage, Christina Kubisch, Alvin Lucier, Annea Lockwood, Ihor Holubizky, Douglas Kahn, Christian Marclay and others. [20] [21]
- Heidi Grundmann (ed.), Zeitgleich: Sound Installation and Media Composition in the Digital Age / Klanginstallation und Medienkomposition im digitalen Zeitalter, Vienna: Triton, 1994, 194 pp. With CD. (in English/German). Catalogue for an symposium, seminar and exhibition held on 3 June-15 August 1994 at Hall in Tirol. Texts by Ros Bandt, Isabella Bordoni / Roberto Paci Dalo, Andres Bosshard, Alvin Curran, Bill Fontana, Matt Heckert, Concha Jerez / Jose Iges, Arthur and Marielouise Kroker, Alvin Lucier, Max Neuhaus, Claude Schryer, and Gerfried Stocker. [22]
- Sound In Space: Adventures in Australian Sound Art, Sydney, 1995. Catalogue for an exhibition curated by Rebecca Coyle and held at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 26 May-22 August 1995. Coyle's essay, Introduction to a special issue of Essays in Sound dedicated to the exhibition.
- Helga de la Motte-Haber (ed.), Klangkunst, Munich: Prestel, with Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 1996, 303 pp. (in German). Catalogue for Sonambiente festival held on 9 August-8 September 1996 in Berlin. [23] [24]
- Lisa Phillips (ed.), The American Century: Art & Culture 1950-2000, New York: The Whitney Museum, with W.W. Norton, 1999, 398 pp. The exhibition included I Am Sitting in a Room: Sound Works by American Artists 1950-2000 programme curated by Stephen Vitiello, 11-16 January 2000. [25], [26], Review of the programme, Interview with the curator.
- Minoru Hatanaka, Takeo Nozaki (eds.), Sound Art - Sound as Media, Tokyo: NTT, 2000, 80 pp. With CD. Catalogue for an exhibition held on 28 January-12 March 2000 at NTT [ICC], Tokyo. Texts by Minoru Hatanaka and Rob Young. [27]
- サウンド・アート - 音というメディア, 2000. (in Japanese) [28]
- Sonic Boom: The Art of Sound, London: Hayward Gallery, 2000, 128 pp. With 2-CD. Catalogue for a large-scale exhibition curated by David Toop and held 27 April-18 June 2000. CD, [29] [30].
- Volume: Bed of Sound, New York: P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, 2000. "CD-catalog", with liner notes by Max Neuhaus. Catalogue for an exhibition curated by Elliot Sharp and Alanna Heiss and held 2 July-19 November 2000. [31] [32] [33]
- Bernd Schulz (ed.), Resonanzen/Resonances. Aspekte der Klangkunst/Aspects of Sound Art, Heidelberg: Kehrer, 2002, 174 pp. With CD. (in English/German). Catalogue for exhibitions held on 6 June-25 August and 15 September-24 November 2002, Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken. Essays on sound art and documentation of works by Bosshard, de Marinis, Julius, Kubisch, Leitner, Oldorp, Osborn, Riches, Roden, Stache, Yui. Schulz: "Sound art is an art form [..] in which sound has become material within the context of an expanded concept of sculpture [..] for the most part works that are space-shaping and space-claiming in nature" (14).
- Helga de la Motte-Haber, "Esthetic Perception in New Artistic Contexts".
- Sophie Duplaix (ed.), Sons & lumières: une histoire du son dans l'art du XXe siècle, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2004, 375 pp. (in French) [34] [35]
- Helga de la Motte-Haber, Matthias Osterwold, Georg Weckwerth (eds.), Sonambiente Berlin 2006: Klang Kunst Sound Art, Heidelberg: Kehrer, with Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 2006, 408 pp. (in German/English). Texts by Helga de la Motte-Haber, Christian Scheib, Gerhard Rühm, Christoph Cox, Claudia Tittel, Rolf Langebartels, Uwe Rüth, Sabine Sanio, Marion Saxer, Sabine Breitsameter, Akio Suzuki, Andres Bosshard, Khaled Saleh, Detlev Ipsen, Gordon Monahan, Julie H. Reiss, Raimar Stange, Lutz Fahrenkrog-Petersen, Rolf Großmann, Nicolas Collins, Jörg Stelkens, Paul B. Davis, Sven König, Golo Föllmer, Gerhard Eckel, Stefan Weinzierl + Kees Tazelaar, Christopher Frauenberger, Frieder Butzmann, Markus Bodden, Nele Hertling. [36] [37]
- Miguel Molina Alarcón, Baku: Symphony of Sirens: Sound Experiments in The Russian Avant-Garde. Original Documents and Reconstructions of 72 Key Works of Music, Poetry and Agitprop from the Russian Avantgardes (1908-1942), London: ReR Megacorp, 2008, 72 pp. With 2-CD.
- singuhr sound gallery in parochial – 1996-2006: sound art in berlin, Heidelberg: Kehrer, 2009, 296 pp. With DVD. [38]
- Andrey Smirnov, Liubov Pchelkina, Pokolenie Z [ПОКОЛЕНИЕ Z], St. Petersburg: PRO ARTE Foundation, 2010, 20 pp. Booklet-newspaper of the Generation Z exhibition. (Russian).
- Pokolenie Z [ПОКОЛЕНИЕ Z], Moscow: Polytechnic Museum, 2011, 20 pp. Booklet-newspaper of the Generation Z exhibition. (in Russian)
- Generation Z: Russian Pioneers of Sound Art and Musical Technology in 1910-1930, Budapest: OSA Archivum, 2011, 20 pp. Booklet-newspaper of the Generation Z exhibition. (in English/Hungarian)
- Sounds. Radio - Art - New Music, Berlin: n.b.k., 2010, 32 pp.
- David Crowley, Daniel Muzyczuk, Sounding the Body Electric: Experiments in Art and Music in Eastern Europe 1957–1984, Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 2012, 222 pp. (in English/Polish)
- Ralf Beil, Peter Kraut, Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt (eds.), A House Full of Music: Strategies in Music and Art, Hatje Cantz, 2012, 416 pp. German edition: Kunst zum Hören: A House Full of Music: Strategien in Musik und Kunst, 2012, 52 p. With CD. Catalogue for an exhibition curated by Ralf Beil, Mathildenhöhe Museum, Darmstadt, 13 May-9 September 2012. Texts by Ralf Beil, Stefan Fricke, Peter Kraut, Thomas Schäfer and others. [39] [40]
- Barbara London, Anne Hilde Neset, Soundings: A Contemporary Score, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2013, 72 pp. [41]
- Giorgio Maffei (ed.), Records by Artists: 1958-1990, Perugia: Viaindustriae Edizioni, and Ravenna: Danilo Montanari Editore, 2013. Catalogue for an exhibition curated by Giorgio Maffei at Biblioteca Universitaria, Bologna, in September-October 2013, of a selection of 130 artists records chosen among Maffei’s personal collection. [42] [43]
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Anthologies
- John Grayson (ed.), Sound Sculpture: A Collection of Essays by Artists Surveying the Techniques, Applications, and Future Directions of Sound Sculpture, Vancouver: Aesthetic Research Centre of Canada, 1975, 196 pp.
- Sound Re Visited: An Anthology Concerning Sound in Art, 1987. Catalogue. (see above)
- Lander, Lexier (eds.), Sound by Artists, 1990; 2013. Catalogue. (see above)
- Douglas Kahn, Gregory Whitehead (eds.), Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde, MIT Press, 1992, 452 pp. [44]
- Caleb Kelly (ed.), Sound, London: Whitechapel Gallery, with MIT Press, 2011, 239 pp. "This anthology argues for sound's importance within contemporary art itself. In doing so it [does] not focus primarily on ‘sound art’ – although it includes all the relevant discussions of this term. Rather, the focus is on ‘listening’ to the visual arts." (15)
Book series
- Sound Studies, Bloomsbury.
- Critical Ear, Errant Bodies. Series of monographs featuring contemporary artists working with sound, experimental music and electronic media.
- Errant Bodies: Anthologies. Publications exploring themes related to sound art, performance, radio and spatial practices.
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Monographs, Edited books
- Peter Chamberlain, An Investigation of Sound/sculpture Relationships, New York: State University College, 1976, 134 pp. [45]
- Trevor Wishart, On Sonic Art, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1985; 2nd ed., ed. Simon Emmerson, Routledge, 1996, 357 pp. "[S]onic art includes music and electroacoustic music. At the same time [..] it cross[es] over into areas which have been categorised distinctly as text-sound and as sound-effects. [..] I have chosen the title On Sonic Art to encompass the arts of organising sound-events in time. This, however, is merely a convenient fiction for those who cannot bear to see the use of the word 'music' extended. For me, all these areas fall within the category I call 'music'." (4)
- Helga de la Motte-Haber, Musik und Bildende Kunst. Von der Tonmalerei zur Klangskulptur, Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1990.
- René van Peer, Interviews with Sound Artists: Taking Part in the Festival ECHO, The Images of Sound II, Eindoven: Het Apollohuis, 1993, 149 pp. Interviews with Joe Jones, Richard Lerman, Jean Weinfeld, Martin Riches, Yakehisa Kosugi, Horst Rickels, Johan Goedhart, Terry Fox, Christina Kubisch, Jim Pomeroy, Walter Fähnrich, Yoshi Wada, Paul Panhuysen. Most interviews took place in 1987. [46]
- Achim Wollscheid, The Terrorized Term, Frankfurt/M: Selektion, 1996, 167 pp. [47] [48]
- Adalaide Kirby Morris (ed.), Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies, University of North Carolina Press, 1997, 349 pp.
- Douglas Kahn, Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts, MIT Press, 1999, 455 pp. Sparked by Dan Lander's idea of "musicalization of sound" presented in the volume Sound by Artists. ([49]; 363-4, n22). "By sound I mean sounds, voices, and aurality--all that might fall within or touch on auditive phenomena, whether this involves actual sonic or auditive events or ideas about sound or listening; sounds actually heard or heard in myth, idea, or implication; sounds heard by everyone or imagined by one person alone; or sounds as they fuse with the sensorium as a whole" (3).
- Helga de la Motte-Haber (ed.), Klangkunst: Tönende Objekte und klingende Räume, Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1999, 352 pp. (in German). Review, Review.
- Brandon LaBelle, Steve Roden (eds.), Site of Sound: Of Architecture and the Ear, Los Angeles: Errant Bodies/Smart Art, 1999, 178 pp. With CD. [50]
- Karin von Maur, Vom Klang der Bilder, Munich, 1999. (in German)
- Allen S. Weiss (ed.), Experimental Sound and Radio, MIT Press, 2000, 188 pp.
- Ken Ehrlich, Brandon LaBelle (eds.), Surface Tension: Problematics of Site, Los Angeles: Errant Bodies, 2003, 328 pp. With CD. Texts by Kim Abeles, Carol Brown, CopenhagenOffice, Octavio Camargo, Jeremiah Day/Concrete Steps, Dispute Resolution Services, Jennifer Gabrys, Jen Hofer/Melissa Dyne, Lucy R. Lippard, Colette Meacher, Christof Migone/Alexander St-Onge (undo), Laurie Palmer, Lize Mogel, Michael Rakowitz, Jane Rendell, Lizzie Scott, Atau Tanaka, and WochenKlausur. [51]
- Yannick Dauby, Paysages sonores partagés, 2004, 119 pp. (in French)
- Maja Kuzmanovic, nadine, Annemie Maes, Yves Bernard (eds.), .x-med-a., experimental media arts, Brussels, 2006, 156 pp.
- Brandon LaBelle, Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art, Continuum, 2006, 316 pp. [52]
- Anne Thurmann-Jajes, Sabine Breitsameter, Winfried Pauleit (eds.), Sound Art: Zwischen Avantgarde und Popkultur / Sound Art: Between Avant-Garde and Pop Culture, Cologne: Salon, 2006, 239 pp. With Audio-CD. (in German and English). Documentation of the conference held on 30 September-2 October 2005 on the occasion of an exhibition, 21 August-27 November 2005, Neuen Museum Weserburg Bremen. Texts by Sabine Breitsameter, Winfried Pauleit, Anne Thurmann-Jajes, Barbara Barthelmes, Julia Kursell, Martin Maurach, Daniel Gethmann, Wolfgang Hagen, Peter Frank, Sten Hanson, Heidi Grundmann, Barbara Flückiger. [53]
- Alan Licht, Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories, New York: Rizzoli, 2007, 304 pp. With CD. Foreword by Jim O’Rourke. [54], CD, Review. "Sound art belongs in an exhibition situation rather than a performance situation. [It is non-narrative, and only] rarely attempts to create a portrait or capture the soul of a human being, or express something about the interaction of human beings—its main concern is sound as a phenomenon of nature and/or technology." (14)
- Ulrich Tadday (ed.), Klangkunst, Munich: Richard Boorberg, 2008, 199 pp. (in German). Excerpt. Contributions by Helga de la Motte, Volker Straebel, Sabine Sanio, Uwe Rüth, Wolfgang Heiniger, Julia H. Schröder, Christoph Metzger, Bernd Schulz/Carsten Seiffarth, Claudia Tittel, and Marion Saxer.
- Seth Kim-Cohen, In the Blink of an Ear: Toward a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art, New York and London: Continuum, 2009, 296 pp. "If [Duchampian] non-retinal visual art is liberated to ask questions that the eye alone cannot answer, then a non-cochlear sonic art appeals to exigencies out of earshot. But the eye and the ear are not denied or discarded. A conceptual sonic art would necessarily engage both the non-cochlear and the cochlear, and the constituting trace of each in the other." (xxi)
- Frances Dyson, Sounding New Media: Immersion and Embodiment in the Arts and Culture, University of California Press, 2009, 262 pp.
- Craig Dworkin, Unheard Music, information as material, 2010, 30 pp. A survey of almost one hundred compositions and performances of silent music.
- Thomas Bey William Bailey, Micro Bionic: Radical Electronic Music & Sound Art in the 21st Century, Creation Books, 2009; 2nd ed., Belsona Books, 2012, 417 pp.
- Salomé Voegelin, Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art, Continuum, 2010, 256 pp. "[This text] is about sound art in that it focuses on sound as its 'object' of investigation; and it is philosophical in that it speculates and inquires into new ways to consider art, the world and our position within the production of art and the world through a sonic sensibility." (xiv)
- Peter Kiefer (ed.), Klangräume der Kunst, Heidelberg: Kehrer, 2010. With Video-DVD. (in German) Review.
- Llorenç Barber, Montserrat Palacios, La mosca tras la oreja: de la música experimental al arte sonoro en España, Madrid: Autor, 2010. With 4-CD. (in Spanish) [55]
- Peter Price, Resonance: Philosophy for Sonic Art, New York: Atropos Press, 2011, 324 pp. [56]
- Carsten Seiffarth, Carsten Stabenow, Golo Föllmer (eds.), Sound Exchange: Anthology of Experimental Music Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe 1950-2010, Saarbrücken: PFAU, 2012. (in English/German)
- Lars Mørch Finborud, Mot det totale museum; Henie Onstad kunstsenter og tidsbasert kunst 1961-2011, Oslo: Forlaget, 2012, 305 pp. (in Norwegian) [57] [58] [59]
- Lin Chiwei (林其蔚), 超越聲音藝術-前衛主義、聲音機器、聽覺現代性, 藝術家出版社, 2012. Excerpt. (in Chinese). First monograph on Chinese sound art.
- Andrey Smirnov, Sound in Z: Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Early 20th-century Russia, London: Koenig Books & Sound and Music, 2013, 281 pp.
- Douglas Kahn, Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts, University of California Press, 2013, 344 pp. [60]
- Seth Kim-Cohen, Against Ambience, Bloomsbury, 2013. [61]
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Journal issues
- 3rd Degree 4: Special Issue: "Earshot" (1988), ed. Shelly Cox, et al.
- Art & Text 31: Special Issue on Sound (December-February 1989), ed. Martin Harrison, et al.
- New Music Articles 8: Special Issue on Sound (1990), ed. Frances Dyson.
- West 5: Special Issue on Sound Cultures (1992), ed. Colin Hood.
- Public (4/5): Special Issue on Sound (Fall 1990), eds. Marc de Guerre and Janine Marchessault, Toronto. [62]
- Music Today 19: Special Issue on Sound (1993), Japan. [63]
- P-Form 33: Special Issue on Audio Art (1994), ed. Lou Mallozzi.
- InterCommunication 9: Special Issue: "Turning Forks: Technologies of Sound and Music" (Summer 1994), Tokyo.
- TDR: The Drama Review 40(3): Special Issue on Experimental Sound and Radio (Autumn 1996). [64]
- eContact! 5.3: "NAISA — New Adventures in Sound Art", 2002. (in English/French)
- Positionen 65: "Klangkunst" (November 2005), Berlin. (in German) [65]
- The Iowa Review Web 8(1): Special issue on Sound Art, ed. Ben Basan, February/March 2006.
- John Grzinich (ed.), kunst.ee: Estonian Quarterly of Art and Visual Culture, Special section on Sound Art, June 2006.
- Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music and Technology, 14(1): Sound Art, ed. Jøran Rudi, Cambridge University Press, 2009, 115 pp.
- Seismograf/DMT: Japansk lydkunst, September 2011. (in Danish)
- Seismograf/DMT: Urbanitet, lyd og kunst, eds. af Kristine Samson and Sanne Krogh Groth, November 2012. (in Danish)
- Kunstjournalen B-post: "Sound / Lyd", 2012. (in English/Norwegian)
- Positionen 94: "Stadt | Kartographie | Klang" (February 2013), Berlin. (in German) [66]
- Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 23: Sound Art, ed. Nicolas Collins, 2013, 106 pp. [67]
Essays (selection)
- David Toop, "Sonic Boom", in Sonic Boom: The Art of Sound, London: Hayward Gallery, 2000, pp 107-131. "[Sound art is] sound combined with visual art practices" (107).
- Max Neuhaus, "Sound Art?", in Volume: Bed of Sound, New York: P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, 2000.
- Julian Cowley, Annotations for Sound Art, 2003, 11 pp.
- Golo Föllmer, "Audio Art" / "Audio Art", English trans. Rebecca van Dyck, MediaArtNet, 2004. (in English/German) "While the term sound art has established itself for the general, non-media-specific expression of [artistic ways of dealing with sounds], in the present context audio art stands for sound art for whose production technical media are either essential or necessary."
- Cat Hope, "Sound Art / Mobile Art", in Sound Scripts: Proceedings of the Inaugural Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference 2005, eds. Cat Hope and Jonathan Marshall, Edith Cowan University, 2006, pp 42-38.
- Douglas Kahn, "The Arts of Sound Art and Music", The Iowa Review Web 8(1): Special issue on Sound Art, ed. Ben Basan, February/March 2006. "I took [Dan] Lander's idea [of "musicalization of sound"] and began to historically research and substantiate it, first in the late-1980s and later in my book Noise, Water, Meat [(1999)]" (7).
- Christoph Cox, "Von Musik zum Klang: Sein als Zeit in der Klangkunst", Sonambiente Berlin 2006: Klang Kunst Sound Art, Heidelberg: Kehrer, 2006, pp 214-23. (in German)
- Andy Hamilton, "Music and the Aural Arts", British Journal of Aesthetics 47:1 (January 2007), pp 46-63.
- Volker Straebel, "Zur frühen Geschichte und Typologie der Klanginstallation", in Klangkunst, ed. Ulrich Tadday, Munich: Richard Boorberg, 2008, pp 24-46. (in German)
- Alan Licht, "Sound Art: Origins, development and ambiguities", Organised Sound 14:1 (April 2009), pp 3-10. "The roots of sound art lie in the disjunction of soundand image afforded by the inventions of the telephone and audio recording as well as the ages-old notion of acoustic space" (4).
- Joseph Nechvatal, "Towards a Sound Ecstatic Electronica", HZ 15 (September 2010), Stockholm: Fylkingen. [68]
- Carsten Seiffarth, "About Sound Installation Art" / "Om lydbasert installasjonskunst", Kunstjournalen B-post, 2012. (in English/Norwegian). "[T]he sound art I focus on in my curatorial work is primarily what Bernhard Leitner once labelled 'sound-space-art'".
- Jørgen Larsson, "Sound art in 2012" / "Lydkunst in 2012", Kunstjournalen B-post, 2012. (in English/Norwegian)
- Edwin Lo (羅潤庭), "The State of Sound Practices in Hong Kong" / 香港聲音實踐現況, 2013. (in English/Chinese)
- Gascia Ouzounian, "Sound Installation Art: From Spatial Poetics to Politics", Music, Sound and Space: Transformations of Public and Private Experience, ed. Georgina Born, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp 73-89. [69]
- Gascia Ouzounian, "Sound Art", in Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Oxford University Press, 2014 (forthcoming).
Theses
- Gascia Ouzounian, Sound Art and Spatial Practices: Situating Sound Installation Art Since 1958, San Diego: University of California, 2008, 373 pp. Ph.D. Dissertation.
- Tristan Louth-Robins, Still and Moving Lines. Listening and Signification in Sound Art, University of Adelaide, 2010, 65 pp. Master's Thesis.
- Yolande Harris, Scorescapes: On Sound, Environment and Sonic Consciousness, Leiden University, 2011, 146 pp. Ph.D. Dissertation.
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Primary references
- Athanasius Kircher, Phonurgia nova, sive conjugium mechanico-physicum artis & natvrae paranympha phonosophia concinnatum, Kempten: Rudolph Dreherr, 1673. (in Latin). Early book on sound, acoustics and music; describes acoustic apparatuses and phenomena such as the tuba stentorophonica [the loud trumpet], the statua citofonica [the talking statue], or the Aeolian harp. Scans online: [70], [71]. Commentaries: [72], [73].
- Luigi Russolo, L’Arte dei rumori, Milan: Edizione Futuriste di Poesia, 1916, 92 pp. (in Italian). The manifesto was first published on 11 March 1913.
- The Art of Noises, trans. Robert Filliou, Something Else Press, 1967. Manifesto only.
- The Art of Noises, trans. Barclay Brown, New York: Pendragon, 1987, 87 pp.
- "El arte de los ruidos. Manifiesto Futurista", Sin Titulo 3 (1996), UCLM, pp 8-15. (in Spanish). Manifesto only.
- Die Geräuschkunst, trans. Justin Winkler and Albert Mayr, Basel: Akroama, 1999. (in German)
- L’Art des bruits. Manifeste futuriste, 2003; 4th ed., 2013. (in French). Manifesto only.
- Iskusstvo shumov [Искусство шумов]. (in Russian). The manifesto only.
- Erik Satie, Musiques d'ameublement, Salabert, 1999. 'Furniture music' scores written from 1917 to the 1920s. See also J.R.F., "Conseils d’été", Vogue 1 (15 June 1920), Paris, p 15, a column mentioning their first performance by Satie: "Furniture music? It is music that must be played between the acts of a theatrical or musical spectacle, and which contributes, like the sets, the curtains or the furniture of the hall in creating an atmosphere. The musical motifs are repeated without stop and it is useless, says Erik Satie, to listen to them: one lives in their ambiance without paying them any attention. It’s up to you to find a way to hear this musique d’ameublement and to devise an opinion on the topic. But that has nothing to do with the furniture we’re so taken with this season. It’s just an opportunity to make and hear music, the passion of the moment." (trans. from Mary E. Davis, Erik Satie, 2007, p 128)
- Pierre Schaeffer, À la recherche d'une musique concrète, Paris: Seuil, 1952. (in French)
- In Search of a Concrete Music, trans. John Dack and Christine North, University of California Press, 2012, 244 pp.
- John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings, Wesleyan University Press, 1961, 276 pp.
- Pierre Schaeffer, Traité des objets musicaux, Paris: Seuil, 1966; 2nd ed., 1977. (in French)
- Includes the essay "Acousmatics"; trans. in Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, eds. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, Bloomsbury, 2004, pp 76-81. Trained as a radio engineer and announcer, Schaeffer was fascinated by the fact that radio and recording made possible a new experience of sound--what he called "reduced listening" or "acousmatic listening"--that disclosed a new domain of sounds--objets sonores or sonorous objects, the objects of "acousmatic listening".
- Bernhard Leitner, "Sound Architecture - Space created through traveling sound", Artforum 9:7 (March 1971), New York.
- Bernhard Leitner, "Sound Space Manifesto", New York, 1977.
- R. Murray Schafer, The Tuning of the World: Toward a Theory of Soundscape Design, New York: Knopf, 1977; repr. as The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1993, 320 pp.
- Brian Eno, "Ambient Music", Ambient 1: Music for Airports, EG Records, 1978. Liner notes to LP/cassette. [74] [75]. See also "Ambient Music", in Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, eds. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, Bloomsbury, 2004, pp 94-97, written in 1996; and discussion of his self-published Music for Non-Musicians, c1970, in Eno and Mills, More Dark than Shark, 1986.
- David Toop, Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds, Serpent’s Tail, 1995, 306 pp; 2001.
Bibliographies
- Selected articles on sound art at SoundArtArchive.net
- Articles and papers on sound art, compiled by Jérôme Joy and Thom Holmes.
- http://www.bmbcon.demon.nl/theory/
- http://www.soundculture.org/texts.html
Resources
- UbuWeb Sound
- Sound art in Continuo's Documents & on Continuo's weblog
- An International Archive of Sound Art
- Ràdio Web MACBA
- Her Noise Archive, a resource of collected materials investigating music and sound histories in relation to gender, by Anne Hilde Neset and Lina Džuverović.
- Ear Room, an online interview publication focusing on the complex use of sound in artistic practice, by Mark Peter Wright.
- Sound art section on Digicult
- SONM Archive, Sound Archive of Experimental Music and Sound Art, established in in 2010 by Francisco López.
- ICA SoundWorks, a collection of over one hundred commissioned sound works.
- Revolutions Per Minute: Sound Art China
- Sound art in Latin America
- Soundbag, an internet project by Rolf Langebartel.
- Ekho: Women in Sonic Art
- Tacet, annual bilingual (French and English) experimental music review (*2012). [76]
- Soundsite: The online journal of Sound Theory, Philosophy of Sound and Sound Art
- Sound art exhibitions timeline, compiled by Jérôme Joy and Thom Holmes. Former version.
- Sound art at Academia.edu
- Rare Books on Deafness, Hearing, and Hearing Devices
See also
Field recording, Radio art, Streaming media, Sound studies, Noise, Circuit bending, SuperCollider, Sensory ethnography.