Art & Sound: More than Meets the Eye
Art is all about affecting the environment around it.
How does a piece influence its surroundings? What will make a viewer or audience member think more about where they’re currently standing (or sitting)? Though we work with visual art primarily, we also understand and appreciate Sound Art and how it works. Take a look at these examples of sound art that we appreciate.
Louise Lawler, Birdcalls, 1972/1981.
Photo by Ken Goebel, courtesy of Dia Beacon
Since the early 1970s, Louise Lawler has created works that expose the economic and social conditions that affect the reception of art. Lawler’s work directs attention to positions of artistic authority and upends the presentation strategies that shape an encounter with an artwork.
In 1972 Lawler developed a series of high-pitched sounds derived from the names of famous male artists, all of whom came to prominence in the 1960s, and many of whom are represented in Dia’s collection. Birdcalls (1972/1981) is a recording of Lawler reciting these translated names, mixed by composer Terry Wilson. For this presentation at Dia Beacon, Lawler installed the audio recording outdoors in the west garden along the Hudson River, and the text panel of names at the exit leading to the garden.
Jeremy Boyle, a white noise generator carefully housed in a small oak shell, 2015.
Photo by Porter Loves
As part of CSA PGH’s 2015 projects, Jeremy Boyle created a white noise generator. Carefully housed in a small oak shell, the circuit plugs directly into an outlet to start generating sound. The volume control can adjust the noise level.
John Giorno, Dial-a-Poem, started in 1968.
Image of John Giorno, courtesy of SF MOMA
In 1968, Giorno created Dial-A-Poem using a telephone service to communicate poetry in a modern idiom. More than one million people used the service, which inspired a range of artistic and commercial applications such as Dial-A-Joke, Dial Sports and Dial-A-Horoscope.
Reinforcing that “much poetry is intended to be heard, not merely read,” he invited a cross-disciplinary network of peers to recite their works, which he recorded and played back using industrial-sized answering machines. The result was “a collage of other poets, which becomes a work of art in itself that changes daily.”
Tonkin Liu, Singing Ringing Tree, 2006.
The hilly landscape outside Burnley in Lancashire, England, has been adorned with a unique sculpture that makes beautiful sounds. “The Singing Ringing Tree,” was created in 2006, by architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu of Tonkin Liu, who were inspired by wind organs. The pipes in the sculpture generate tones when stroked by the wind. Length, design and cooperation between the pipes affects the melodies you can hear when the wind blows over the rugged landscape.
Gil Delindro, Burned Cork- Resilience, 2021.
Photo taken by Winter Van Rafelghem
Gil Delindro‘s work is about change, decay and a possible lack of control. Sculptures that actively use the unpredictable effects of time, weather, erosion, and outdoor atmospheric conditions, opposing them to acoustic-manufactured tools.
Most of Delindro's works have a savage appearance, reflecting the brutal and violent side of Nature.Such brutality is well illustrated in his latest award-winning installation, Burned Cork — Resilience (2021). Its charcoal centerpiece of Cork Oak tree bark, which was devastated by a massive wildfire in 2021, has an acoustic topography that produces sound on direct contact with its surface, in the manner of a vinyl record. The tree itself has survived due to the incredible properties of its Cork skin, a natural fire- retardant and incredibly resistant organic material, that allows the tree not only to survive, but to act as a protector, by slowing down the fire progression towards other species.