Sound Art:
Beyond MuSic,
Between
cAtegorieS
By Alan Licht
Rizzoli, £25/$49.95 (hardcover)
Ewan MacColl once said that whenever he was
asked what he did for a living, if he answered ‘folk
singer’, people would smile politely and walk away,
world, curating concerts at the legendary Tonic
but if he described himself as a folklorist, a small
club for seven years, so the study is weighted
crowd would gather. The distinction comes to
towards the US and in particular postwar New
mind when Alan Licht states that the term ‘sound
York, from the Fluxus-related drones of La Monte
artist’ carries more legitimacy than ‘experimental
Young and Marian Zazeela to the ‘virtual gallery’
musician’, due to the relative economic and
Sonic Youth have been curating on their own LP
‘glamour’ differentials between the artworld and
sleeves. Frequent references to pop and rock
the lot of the underground musician.
musicians’ flirtations with the artworld – from
Given the higher profile of sonic arts in the
John Lennon’s association with Yoko Ono to art
past decade – major exhibitions from the Whitney
students Black Dice’s appearances at ‘openings’
to the Hayward and Pompidou; Tate acquiring
– are cited as tenuous evidence of meaningful
work by Christian Marclay, Bruce Nauman
interplay between musicians and the artworld.
and Bill Fontana – the lack of interest from art
When it flows the other way, there’s little critical
publishers in commissioning a landmark history
engagement with the work itself. If Rodney
of sound art appears negligent, if not downright
Graham’s pedestrian, folky acoustic guitar albums
ignorant of an enormous, underdocumented area
were all that he did, he’d be an inconsequential
of culture. Experimental rock musician, writer and
musical artist; his bloodless songwriting can
installation artist Alan Licht has bravely stepped
only have currency as an ‘extension’ of his video
into the breach with this, the first attempt to
and painted work. Licht leaves these issues of
survey the broad terrain of audio art.
contextuality unexamined.
In the first section, ‘What Is Sound Art?’,
As Marclay says, “It is in sound’s nature to
Licht simply outlines the problematics of coming
be free and uncontrollable and to go through the
to some useful definition of the field. Sound art,
cracks and to go places where it’s not supposed
implies Licht, is neither music (which tends to be
to go.” That’s borne out by the sheer variety of
consumed as part of the entertainment industry)
invention covered in the book: Laurie Anderson’s
nor ‘art’ (in the sense that it doesn’t always result in
turntable violin, Jean Tinguely’s auto-destructing
a unique viewable – or saleable – object. Instead,
machines; the public space interventions of
sound art can be defined by the space it’s shown
Max Neuhaus and Maryanne Amacher; Annea
in; or it can be a sculpture or installation with a
Lockwood’s pianos, left to whistle and decay
sound-producing function; or it can be sound
in coastal spray; the Baschet Brothers’ space-
made by acknowledged visual artists that extends
age steel Sputniks; Ryoji Ikeda’s spectral digital
By Alun Rowlands
their own practice into an aural medium.
Book Works, £12 (gatefold)
datastreams. But there’s another book to be
The problem is that Licht doesn’t always
written about the significance, the historical
adhere to his own useful three-line rubric. He’s
context, motivations for and wonder of much of
a key player in New York’s experimental music
this material. Licht gives us plenty of ‘what’, but
we could have done with far more of the ‘why’.
rob young
FEB_books_p1.indd.indd 131 7/1/08 13:19:48
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