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Tag Archives: Avant-garde
Kirribilli Wharf sound sculpture (1976) by Bill Fontana
I have worked for the past 45 years creating installations that use sound as a sculptural medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of visual and architectural settings. These have been installed in public spaces and museums around the world including San Francisco, New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Venice, Sydney and Tokyo.
My sound sculptures use the human and/or natural environment as a living source of musical information. I am assuming that at any given moment there will be something meaningful to hear and that music, in the sense of coherent sound patterns, is a process that is going on constantly. My methodology has been to create networks of simultaneous listening points that relay real time acoustic data to a common listening zone (sculpture site). Since 1976 I have called these works sound sculptures.
I have produced a large number of works that explore the idea of creating live listening networks. These all use a hybrid mix of transmission technologies that connect multiple sound retrieval points to a central reception point. What is significant in this process are the conceptual links determining the relationships between the selected listening points and the site-specific qualities of the reception point (sculpture site). Some conceptual strategies have been acoustic memory, the total transformation of the visible (retinal) by the invisible (sound), hearing as far as one can see, the relationship of the speed of sound to the speed of light, and the deconstruction of our perception of time.
From the late 90”s until the present my projects have explored hybrid listening technologies of acoustic microphones, underwater sensors (hydrophones) and structural/material sensors (accelerometers). Some of my most recent works I call Acoustical Visions and are explorations of the image that a sound makes and the sound that an image makes. (Artists Statement by Fontana, from his web site)
Harmonic Bridge, a more recent work, was created for and exhibited at the Tate Modern in 2006. Click on the images to find out more, watch, listen.
La Selva (1997) by Francisco López
Click on the image to listen on Sound Archive on Experimental Music and Sound Art (requires registration on the site)
“La Selva is a dynamic example of what we could call ‘environmental acousmatics.’ There are many sounds in the forest, but one rarely has the opportunity to see the sources of most of these sounds… Many animals in La Selva live in this acousmatic world, in which the rule is not to see their conspecifics, predators, or preys, but just to hear them.” (López, in Audio Culture, p. 86 )
Click on López’s image to go to his web site
Sound Walks and Installations by Cardiff Miller
Cardiff Miller (click for their web site) is the collaborative team of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Below are some of the sound walks discussed by David Toop, plus some installations that use sound to create experimental narratives:
Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (2012)
The Forty Part Motet (2001) Solo work by Janet Cardiff
The Missing Voice: Case Study B (1999)
More Video Art by Gary Hill
Mediations (towards a remake of Soundings) 1986
Black / White / Text (1980)
Incidents of Catastrophe (1987-88) Click to view video – discussed by Chion in the class reading
Gary Hill’s web site
Maryanne Amacher, 1938-2009
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Frequency and Volume: Relational Architecture 9
Click on the image to go to Lozano-Hemmer’s web site for more information, images, and video documenting this installation
Ryoji Ikeda
Towards a Feminist Historiography of Electronic Music
Heeding Rodger’s call, let’s start listening to and watching some of the women electronic musicians mentioned in her essay (also check out Rodger’s Pink Noises web site):
Clara Rockmore plays The Swan by Saint-Saëns
More Rockmore performances on this playlist.
Maria Chavez performing live at Vinyl Edge Records in Houston, TX
More information and media at Chavez’s web site
Metamorphosis (2015) Mira Calix creates a new score for Mathew Clark/UVA collaboration with Paris Opera.
Annea Lockwood’s Performance Piano Burning, performed in London in 1968. Click on the image to hearing some of her compositions.
Here is an interview with her at Sonic Acts XIII, 2010.
TKO (2004) by Le Tigre
Voices of AIDS; Diamanda Gala & Klaus Nomi
Diamanda Galas – Click on her image to go to her web site
Klaus Nomi – click on his image to see his live performance of Cold Song in 1982
There are plenty of recordings and videos of their vocal performances online: see here, here, here, and here. Galas’s web site is a good place to learn more about her oeuvre. There is a documentary about Nomi, The Nomi Song (2004) Dir. Andrew Horn.
INTRODUCTION TO SOUND STUDIES 