[-empyre-] curating sound art

Wed Jun 18 02:53:54 EST 2014

Mash-ups, orchestrations, audio ecologies, and the like are good 
strategies for sound curation. And some of the best sound shows I've 
seen/heard have treated sound bleed as a positive rather than a negative 
feature: e.g., the "Treble" show that Regine Basha curated at 
SculptureCenter in 2004 or so, "In Resonance," curated by Fionn Meade at 
Seattle Center in 2005, Allora & Calzadilla's "Never Mind that Noise 
that You Heard' at the Stedelijk in 2008, etc.

But that sort of orchestration is difficult, requiring either a group 
commission or very close coordination between artists, which can strain 
budgets and relationships. Visual (and sonic) artists are often annoyed 
by sound bleed. And the professed acceptance/affirmation of sound bleed 
can be a lazy way to "solve" a problem, patting oneself on the back for 
an exhibition that, in truth, sounds like shit. (Perhaps that's the case 
with the Chris Marker show Denise describes.)

To Renate's earlier question, Brandon LaBelle's book (and Seth 
Kim-Cohen's) provide valuable beginnings at telling the story of the 
co-evolution of sound art and "visual" art in the late 1960s and 1970s. 
 From my p.o.v. (or p.o.a.), the historical connection is deeper than 
both LaBelle and Kim-Cohen present and also reveals deeper rifts 
(particularly between conceptuality and materiality) in subsequent 
artistic practice and critical discourse.

On 6/17/14, 11:03 AM, Lewis Kaye wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Online curation does open up some new possibilities, however there is a
> problem with the exclusivity it imposes. MP3s are a very finicky format,
> and a lot of audio work just sounds terrible when compressed this way.
> Such work, for example some of the compositions I do with crowd sounds,
> could never be presented this way.
>
> Basically, the format is not a neutral part of the signal chain. Sterne's
> book on the subject makes this abundantly clear.
>
> best,
>
> Lewis
>
> On 2014-06-17, 10:22 AM, "Jim Drobnick" <jim at displaycult.com> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Online curating definitely has advantages and disadvantages, doesn't it?
>> While the technology of mp3s and the like certainly make soundworks more
>> easily distributable and accessible, the problems are evident in the 2
>> shows I mentioned in my intro yesterday -- ICA's Soundworks and Berlin's
>> Zeigen (which wasn't an online show technically, but it functions like
>> one when distributed on CD). Both had an overwhelming number of artists,
>> and most of the clips were short, a minute or less.
>>
>> Beyond the limited expectations of what can be done in such a short time
>> frame, I found something else arose in the listening experience. While
>> flipping through so many contributions one after another, either in the
>> space or at home, I found myself judging the works by how much immediate
>> impact they offered. Works that had an emphatic oomph to them, something
>> like on the order of Dick Higgins' Danger Music, drew my attention more
>> than subtler works. Nuance seemed to lose out by comparison. My patience
>> was practically non-existent when going through all the files to find the
>> most interesting one or the next "hit". Even though I knew my experience
>> was being biased, and I had the opportunity to control it, it felt like
>> the technology coerced my listening to a great degree.
>>
>> Any one else experience something similar? How is it possible, then, to
>> counteract the downside of superficial online listening?
>>
>> best,
>>
>> Jim
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2014-06-17, at 9:51 AM, Salomé Voegelin wrote:
>>
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>> It's interesting that noone has yet to mention curating sound art
>>>> online
>>>> where many of these bleed problems are naturally contained.
>>> I am very interested in the context of work online, less as a parallel
>>> gallery opportunity and more as a radiophonic environment off schedule.
>>> I have tried to do something in that way myself
>>> (http://clickanywhere.crisap.org/) but feel that the visual pull of the
>>> net, our staring into its virtual space, makes it important the the
>>> environment the sound work is embedded in is well designed and carefully
>>> considered in relation to the sound so we get seduced to listen rather
>>> than focus on what is not there.
>>>
>>>> I actually found the bleed to be fascinating
>>>> and energizing, as if to suggest that the energy and volume of these
>>>> radical performance events
>>> I also do not find the bleed the main problem of curating sound, and
>>> would not go on-line to avoid it. the very opposite: the overlaps and
>>> spillages are the audio-visual context the sound work is performed in,
>>> just like the architecture of the space, color of the walls, or the
>>> lighting arrangement, they form not a distraction but the focus of
>>> listening and could be exploited and used in designing the
>>> presentation/performance rather than avoided.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jun 17, 2014, at 2:37 PM, Timothy Conway Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>> Thanks everyone for such stimulating posts.  I enjoyed an exhibition in
>>>> Taiwan this spring on the history of sound art in Taiwan from martial
>>>> law
>>>> onward: "ALTERing NATIVism: Sound Cultures in Post-War Taiwan" at the
>>>> Cube
>>>> Project Space.  This included footage of very loud rave events that
>>>> bled
>>>> into other rooms and pieces.  I actually found the bleed to be
>>>> fascinating
>>>> and energizing, as if to suggest that the energy and volume of these
>>>> radical performance events (just after the lifting of martial
>>>> law)connected with and resounded through the related sound art
>>>> projects in
>>>> Taiwan.
>>>>
>>>> It's interesting that noone has yet to mention curating sound art
>>>> online
>>>> where many of these bleed problems are naturally contained.  You might
>>>> be
>>>> interested in an exhibition that I did with Arthur and Marilouise
>>>> Kroker
>>>> for our collaborative project, CTHEORY Multimedia, called NetNoise:
>>>> http://ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu/four.php  Although the pieces
>>>> don't
>>>> bleed into each other, they will continue to resonate in the
>>>> background if
>>>> users don't close their browser (a little trick we played on more naïve
>>>> users of a decade agoŠ).
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Tim
>>>>
>>>> Timothy Murray
>>>> Professor of Comparative Literature and English
>>>> Director, Society for the Humanities
>>>> http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/
>>>> Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media
>>>> http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu
>>>> A D White House
>>>> Cornell University,
>>>> Ithaca, New York 14853
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 6/16/14 2:44 PM, "Andra McCartney" <andrasound at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
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