Listening to noise and silence : towards a philosophy of sound art

250 Pages·2010·0.73 MB·English

by  Voegelin

Listening to
Noise and
Silence
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Listening to
Noise and
Silence
TOWARDS A PHILOSOPHY OF SOUND ART
by
Salomé Voegelin
2010
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com
Copyright © 2010 by Salomé Voegelin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written
permission of the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-1-4411-6207-6 (PB)
978-1-4411-2643-6 (HB)
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii
INTRODUCTION ix
CHAPTER 1
Listening 1
CHAPTER 2
Noise 41
CHAPTER 3
Silence 77
CHAPTER 4
Time and Space 121
CHAPTER 5
Now 167
NOTES 191
BIBLIOGRAPHY 217
LIST OF WORKS 221
INDEX 223
v
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Acknowledgments
This book has been inspired and guided by many informal chats and
more formal discussions. It has been made possible through the help
and trust of many people around me in my private life as well as in the
field of Sound Art, its practice and research. I am grateful for every
opportunity I was given to present and debate the concerns of this
book with colleagues, family, friends and students, and hope that in
return the ideas put forward here will help them to further their own
research and practice of Sound Art.
Most of all I want to thank David Mollin who has supported me
in so many ways through this endeavour. I also want to particularly
thank David Toop who gave me the belief it could be done, and Angus
Carlyle and Professor Nick deVille for their close reading and feed-
back on the text. I want to thank Cathy Lane for our ongoing discus-
sions on sound, and Peter Cusack for his insights and suggestions.
I would like to mention the lunches debating the pathetic and memory
with Thomas Gardner, and the very useful exchanges on their work
with Clare Gasson and Ed Osborn. J. Milo Taylor’s immersive database
of Sound Art, ImMApp, became an invaluable tool to access work. Ed
Baxter and Taigen Kawabe’s knowledge on Japanese noise music
provided many important pointers, and Rahma Kazham’s invitation to
speak gave me the opportunity to publicly audition my ideas.
I wish to express gratitude to my sister Dea Voegelin for her help
with research, and also wish to thank all my colleagues at LCC (London
College of Communication) and the whole of CRiSAP (Creative
Research in Sound Arts Practice) as well as other artists who all, one
way or another, encouraged and contributed to my ideas on Sound Art
over the last few years: Chris Petter, John Wynne, David Cunningham,
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viii (cid:122) Listening to Noise and Silence
Aki Pasoulas, Iris Garrelfs, Jörg Köppl, Helen Bendon, Michael
Hiltbrunner, Nye Parry and many more.
Lastly I would also like to mention the Sound Arts students at
LCC, whose own struggle with the notion of a critical discourse of
Sound Art has in many ways instigated and motivated this project.
INTRODUCTION