This book is a facsimile edition of the 1990 book Sound by Artists, which was produced as part of Art Metropole’s “…by Artists” series and was co-published by Walter Phillips Gallery. This seminal text on the topic of sound art was out of print. The new facsimile edition once again makes this book affordable and accessible. This book contains 35 essays and projects as well as a 21-page “listening list” of sound recordings by artists. The book has been redesigned for this edition by Micah Lexier and Matthew Hoffman. Please note that this facsimile edition does not contain the Christian Marclay flexi-disk and does not have actual raised Braille on the cover.
Excerpt
The desire to compile this anthology was driven by the noticeable lack of information and critical analysis regarding an art of sound. Although there has been an abundance of activity centred around explorations into sonic expression, there is no sound art movement, as such. In relation to artists’ works, sound occupies a multitude functions and its employment is often coupled with other media, both static and time-based. As a result, it is not possible to articulate a distinct grouping of sound artists in the way one is able to identify other art practices. As the reader will discover, the ideas and projects put forth between the covers of this book are diverse and at times at odds with one another. The contributors included span many disciplines: critic, curator, writer, composer, video artist, installation artist, visual artist, performance artist and some more aptly described as sound, audio or radio artist. Sound by Artists is a collection of information pertaining to a disparate art form, presented in the hopes of stimulating dialogue.
The terms experimental music and sound art are considered by some to be synonymous and interchangeable. In fact, it is difficult to identify an art of sound precisely because of its historical attachment to music. Although music is sound, the tendency has been to designate the entire range of sonic phenomenon to the realm of music. With the introduction of noise—the sounds of life—into a compositional framework tending towards the ephemeral and avoiding the referential, artists and composers have created works based on the assumption that all sounds uttered are music. Futurist Luigi Russolo, envisioning an all-inclusive music, states in The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto (1913) that:
We want to give pitches to these diverse noises, regulating them harmonically and rhythmically. Giving pitch to noises does not mean depriving them of all irregular movements and vibrations of time and intensity, but rather assigning a degree or pitch to the strongest and most prominent of these vibrations. Noise differs from sound, in fact, only to the extent that the vibrations that produce it are confused and irregular. Every noise has a pitch, some even a chord, which predominates among the whole of its irregular vibrations.1
Noise is considered by Russolo for its expressive musical qualities only and not for any other significant meaning(s) that it may hold. Here, we have a definition of music that considers all (organized) sound as music, limiting the possibilities for an art of sound autonomous from the structures and presuppositions traditionally attached to musical composition and reception. The imposition of a ‘musical template’ onto the sounds that otherwise, in a day to day context, have meanings other than musical ones, leads us to a dead end conclusion: all sound is music. In defense of a music autonomous from noise, Chris Cutler, drummer and critic has written:
But if, suddenly, all sound is ‘music,’ then by definition, there can be no such thing as sound that is not music. The word music becomes meaningless, or rather it means ‘sound.’ But ‘sound’ already means that. And when the word ‘music’ has been long minted and nurtured to refer to a particular activity in respect of sound—namely its conscious and deliberate organization within a definite aesthetic and tradition—I can see no convincing argument at this late stage for throwing these useful limitations into the dustbin…2
The ‘useful limitations’ that constitute and enrich a musical art practice, restrain and limit an art of sound. The stripping away of meaning from the noise of our world constitutes a refusal—to engage ourselves in dialogue with the multiplicity of meanings conveyed by the sounds we produce, reproduce and hear. If a critical theory of sound (noise) is to develop, the urge to ‘elevate all sound to the state of music,’ will have to be suppressed. Noise—your lover’s voice, a factory floor, the television news—is ripe with meaning and content distinguishable from the meaning and content of musical expression. It is this content that constitutes any possibility for an art of sound.
—excerpted from the introduction by Dan Lander
Table of Contents
Preface Micah Lexier 9
Introduction Dan Lander 10
The Future of Music: Credo John Cage 15
Soundings Suzanne Delehanty 20
The Sound of One Line Scanning Bill Viola 39
Speaking, the Holding of Breath/ A Conversation between Marysia Lewandowska and Caroline Wilkinson Marysia Lewandowska 55
Listen Max Nehaus 63
About My Installations Christina Kubisch 68
Anti-Copyright and Cassette Culture Donal McGraith 73
Notes of a Listener Max Bruinsma 88
Wisdom About Audio Art Richard Kostelanetz 97
Radio: Audio Art’s Frightful Parent Bruce Barber 108
Parole/ mots/ words/ wörter Maurizio Nannuci 138
Speaker Swinging Gordon Monahan 140
As Told To: structures for conversation Daina Augaitis 146
Cut and paste: Collage and the Art of Sound Kevin Concannon 161
Selected Audio Works, 1970-1980 Ian Murray 183
I am sitting in a room Alvin Lucier 191
In Conversation with Douglas Simon Alvin Lucier 193
Bodies, Anti-Bodies and Nobodies Gregory Whitehead 199
Mystery Tapes Mystery Laboratory 202
Radical Radio R. Murray Schafer 207
Piano Transplants Annea Lockwood 217
A Sound Map of the Hudson River Annea Lockwood 220
Cool Drool Hildegard Westerkamp 227
VEC AUDIO EXCHANGE Rod Summers 235
Very Nice, Very Nice Ihor Holubitzky 241
Notes on the Phonograph Records Jack Goldstein 259
Soundtrack Moniek Darge and Godfried-Willem Raes 262
Proposal for Conceptual Musick Graf Haufen 282
Event for Amplified Body, Laser Eyes and Third Hand Stelarc 284
John Cage on Radio and Audio Tape Richard Kostelanetz 289
Audio Art in the Deaf Century Douglas Kahn 301
Mimicry Rita McKeough 329
Sound Page Christian Marclay 337
A Selection of Recorded Works by Artists 339
A Selected Bibliography 361
About the Contributors 375
Index 381
Artists & Writers
Daina Augaitis, Bruce Barber, Max Bruinsma, John Cage, Kevin Concannan, Moniek Darge, Suzanne Delehanty, Jack Goldstein, Graf Haufen, Ihor Holubizky, Douglas Kahn, Richard Kostelanetz, Christina Kubisch, Marysia Lewandowska, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Lucier, Christian Marclay, Donal McGraith, Rita McKeough, Gordon Monahan, Ian Murray, Mystery Laboratory, Maurizio Nannucci, Max Neuhaus, Godfried-Willem Raes, Stelarc, Rod Summers, Bill Viola, Hildegard Westerkamp, Gregory Whitehead, Caroline Wilkinson, R. Murray Schaeffer, Stelarc, Rod Summers, Bill Viola, Gregory Whitehead, Hildegard Westerkamp, Caroline Wilkinson
Reviews of the Facsimile Edition
Editors Lander and Lexier have made a brave attempt to define exactly what “sound by artists” is, collating over 30 essays ranging from interview excerpts with John Cage to art installation literature; discussion over how everyday “noise” constitutes audio art; cassette culture of the 80s; and pioneering tape-splicing the likes of which Steinski helped take overground... There’s some seriously good stuff here, though, forcing the reader to think about how they perceive their surroundings, while it also reveals how some seriously forward-thinking brains have freed music-making from the strictures of traditional songwriting.
—Jason Draper, Record Collector, June 2013
...the art historical essays contain some great writing and provide a context for the emerging thoughts of the time... The pieces from the artists’ end of the spectrum, taking in scores, interviews, documentation of events, theories and outlines of then-ongoing projects, hold up remarkably well... The icing on the cake, though, is surely the absurdly extensive list of audio works by artists that concludes the book.
—Matthew Erickson, The Wire, June 2013.
...la reedición del también histórico libro "Sound by Artists", publicado originalmente en 1990 y editado por Dan Lander y Micah Lexier. Pues bien, hace sólo unos meses la Blackwood Gallery y Charivari Press pusieron a la venta una edición facsímil de este volumen, cuya versión original sólo puede encontrarse a precios astronómicos, y en muy contadas ocasiones. Así que aquellos interesados en leer las contribuciones a este ya clásico volumen de autores como John Cage, Kevin Concannan, Douglas Kahn, Richard Kostelanetz, Christina Kubisch o Annea Lockwood, entre muchos otros, ahora tienen una oportunidad mucho más sencilla para hacerlo.
—Ars Sonora, Radio Clásica - Radio Nacional de España
Reviews of the First Edition:
The 32 contributions cross generations and approaches to sound work—from soundscapes to installations, from radio to cassette publishing. ...this book is worth having. Lander's and Lexier's prolonged efforts are much appreciated.
—Clive Robertson, Fuse, Winter 1991, Vol. 14 No. 3.
...a handsome and highly readable collection of essays, apologia, manifestos, and interviews about sound art. There are historical overviews, surveys of recent work, discussions of copyright (a big issue in the age of digital sampling) and even some recipes for reproducing works of sound art.
—Robert Everett-Green, The Globe & Mail
...the diversity is enormous, both in the documentation of sound art and the number of issues discussed, but it's the inclusion of provocative essays by the likes of Douglas Kahn (an intelligent critique of music being a hindrance to the development of a wider sound art) that really stands out.
—EST Magazine
...this is a valuable collection of articles driven, as Dan Lander says in his preface, 'by the noticeable lack of information and critical analysis regarding an art of sound' despite the 'abundance of activity centred around explorations into sonic expression', and is a useful discussion document for re-visioning what be a more healthy and innovative future for audio art.
—Variant Magazine #13
How to Order
This publication is no longer available. For research purposes, please check www.worldcat.org for the library holding of this title closest to you.
Dan Lander and Micah Lexier
Designer
Matthew Hoffman
Copy Editor
Joyce Mason
Proofreading
Janice Carbert and Richard Naster
Scanning
Visual Resource Library, Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre and the Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga
Sound by Artists
ISBN 978-1-895166-28-6
Published by Blackwood Gallery and Charivari Press, 2013.
Originally published in 1990 by Art Metropole and Walter Phillips Gallery.
Out of print
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