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"What is sound art? And what do we know about its origin story? We explore this question and more with our guest this week, artist and educator Judy Dunaway. An adjunct professor in the History of Art Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Dunaway's recent article, "The Forgotten 1979 MoMA Sound Art Exhibition," is a fascinating look at the history of sound art and highlights important contributions by female artists. In our wide-ranging discussion, we also hear about Dunaway's own artistic practice, from her work with latex balloons to transmission art to a "phone improv" show over BlogTalkRadio a decade ago."

"My interest is how to be in life with unstable elements." We encountered the artist Yuko Mohri seated among still-life compositions of rotting fruits with electrical wires and rhythmically dripping sculptures of water tubes and everyday objects. Here, in her installation 'Compose' in the Japan Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, Mohri sat down to explain her artistic approach and the foundations of her work. Set against the collective trauma of natural catastrophes of earthquakes and tsunamis in her home country, Japan, Mohri's art reflects on recovery and resilience. Drawing inspiration from her teenage years in an experimental punk band, her art invites viewers to engage with the environment through a lens of continuous negotiation and adaptation. A part of her work is inspired by Tokyo's metro stations, where water leaks are managed with makeshift solutions. Mohri draws parallels between these everyday improvisations and her own DYI-style kinetic installations. "It's like an improvised sculpture, confronting a little emergency," she notes, highlighting the negotiation between crisis and coexistence using everyday objects. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mohri found herself in lockdown, isolated from others, and therefore missing elements of instability. At this time, she became intrigued by the changing nature of fruits, which appear stable but undergo constant moisture level changes, which can be measured in terms of electrical resistance. "The fruit itself actually passes electricity, but it's changing the resistance depending on the rotting process," she explains. This instability became the foundation of an electrical system that generates music and light based on the fruits' condition. Through her installations, Mohri encourages viewers to engage with their surroundings, fostering a broader perspective on the relationship between people, art, and the environment. "I hope this small negotiation can create another view," she concludes. Yuko Mohri (

"Over the past 40 years "sound art" has been hailed as a new artistic category in numerous writings, yet one of its first significant exhibitions is mentioned only in passing, if at all. The first instance of the hybrid term sound art used as the title of an exhibition at a major museum was Sound Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), shown from 25 June to 5 August 1979. Although this was not marketed as a feminist exhibition, curator Barbara London selected three women to exemplify the new form. Maggi Payne created multi-speaker works that utilized space in a sculptural fashion; Connie Beckley combined language and sounding sculptural objects, showing sound in both a conceptual and physical manifestation; and Julia Heyward's work used aspects of feminist performance art including music, narrative, and the voice in order to buck abstract aesthetics of the time. This paper uses archival research, interviews, and analysis of work presented to reconstruct the exhibition and describe the obstacles both the artists and the curator encountered. The paper further provides context in the lives of the artists and the curator as well as the surrounding artistic scene, and ultimately exposes the discriminatory reasons this important exhibition has been marginalized in the current discourse."

"This thesis is an exploration of some of the discourses arising out of the current ecological crises (Haraway 2016; Horton 2017) and argues that radio art is a constructive method for opening out practices of listening, for helping move beyond anthropocentric dialogues, and simultaneously beyond the constraints of dominant modes of storytelling. Ecological Thinking (Code 2006) and concepts of Planetary Time (Dimock 2003) are a useful framework from which to view contemporary radio art practices because they accentuate long and complex networks of interconnectivity, not only within nature, but, more recently, between living beings, technology and the environment. By identifying the interconnectedness of radio and transmission, and the possibility for immersion not only in the content but the process of the medium itself, it is hoped that recognition will be given to the necessity to think ecologically (holistically) in order to create sustainable symbioses between humans, technology and the living and 'non-living' entities of the planet. I begin by providing an outline of anthropocene discourses intertwined with radio and radio art practice. Then I describe and contextualize the radio art work 'chorus duet for radio' (Donovan 2016), positioning it as an example of a collective, trans-scalar listening encounter. I move on to posit radio as a valuable medium from which to critique and disrupt masculinised and westernised (radio) histories, and as an outlet for feminist, queer, and speculative re-tellings of the past. History is viewed here in the same way as electromagnetic radiation: as matter to be untangled. Finally I use the garden radio art project Datscha Radio17 (Schaffner 2017) to give an overview of how radio can be implemented in an expanded way to examine many of the interconnected themes of this thesis: the anthropocene, radio art, ecology, human and more-than-human networks, listening, speculative storytelling, and disruption. This thesis is an explor

"In case you haven't been tracking the progress of group exhibitions of sound art, a short history would be: they are generally a disaster, with many works either impossible to hear adequately in the situation or impossible not to hear while you are trying to listen to something else. "It is in sound's nature to be free and uncontrollable and to go through the cracks and to go places where it's not supposed to go," as the sound artist Christian Marclay said, in an interview, in 2005. Meanwhile, the institutions that are devoted to art exhibition-galleries, museums-are all about placing art works where they intend them to stay. "I think it's great that there is this interest in sound and music," Marclay said. "But the over-all art-world structures are not yet ready for that, because sound requires different technology and different architecture to be presented.""

"Open Space 2014" is an exhibition introducing works of media art and other forms of artistic expression born out of today's media environments, to a broad audience. Literally a beginner's guide to media art, the exhibition features leading works from the realm of media art, artworks incorporating cutting-edge technologies, works with a critical standpoint, and in addition, projects that are currently in progress at various research institutions. All of them are being displayed along with explanatory notes designed to help the visitor gain a better understanding, according to our aim to present media art in a fun and easily accessible way. Also on the schedule during the exhibition period are a number of related programs including talk sessions, lectures, symposia and workshops with artists and experts, as well as guided tours around the exhibits with explanations by the curatorial staff. A space that combines ICC's diverse functions, Open Space integrates galleries, a mini theater, and the video archive "HIVE." Since its launch in 2006, the exhibition has been held as an admission-free event with changing contents each year. Based on the mission of ICC, it aims to function as an open platform where possibilities of communication culture and art created with the help of advanced technologies can be presented to a large number of people.

"Here's an interesting lecture philosopher Christoph Cox gave recently (January 18) in connection with a sound intervention by Andrea Hornick in the Collection Gallery of Barnes Foundation. The lecture, entitled "A brief history of sound art" explores pretty much what its name suggests, going from historical works and artists to relations between sound and other art forms. The philosopher "traces the history of sound art from the invention of audio recording in the late 19th century to the genre-bending compositions of John Cage to the explosion of sound installation in the 1960s. Cox surveys a range of sonic practices, revealing how they resemble and resist approaches in the visual arts.""

"Hai Art is an artist ran international art platform with focus on contemporary art forms such as new media, sound art, environmental, ecological and participatory arts with crossover to science and education to intertwine international and local programs in Hailuoto/ Finland. "

"What is "sound art"? Should we define it within the context of experimental music or the visual arts or both? While the term first came into being in the 1980s, sound in the visual arts has a far longer history, ranging from Modernist experiments with synesthesia to the avant-garde exploits of Dada and Futurism. Sound art also has a distinctly musical heritage, emerging from the compositional experiments of John Cage, Tony Conrad, La Monte Young, Maryanne Amacher, and Pauline Oliveros, among others. This conversation will serve as the keynote to an all-day interdisciplinary conference on sound art and experimental music."

"Sound art has an identity crisis. Trapped between experimental music and traditional art mediums, it suffers from inaccessibility and an elitist, academic "cost of entry" requirement in order to connect with works in the contemporary art canon. With the recent passing of sound artist Alvin Lucier, the only hope for the future of sound art is in uplifting the outliers who push towards creating new conceptually rooted work rather than continuing to reward artists who glorify technology at the expense of providing approachable entry points."

"Bells ring, but it's not your grandmother calling you to dinner from the backyard. Bells ring and people shout, but it's not in a train station. Bells ring, people shout and a motorcycle whizzes by. Cars honk. "Dolla dolla dolla," the hawkers call. Despite standing in an underground gallery at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., visitors are instantly transported to the Balogun Market in Lagos, Nigeria, through Emeka Ogboh's sound art installation, "Market Symphony." Open through Sept. 24, this is the museum's first sound-art installation, thanks to curator Karen Milbourne, who has a special interest in sound art. Ogboh appeals directly to only one of the five senses-hearing-to re-create the atmosphere of an open-air market. Upending the traditional museum visitor experience presents several opportunities."

"Museum of Sound is a project held in National Museum in Krakow consisting of various actions using sound. We are used to watching art in museums, perceiving it though sight. We forget how important it is to listen to it. Sound can extract unusual stories and revive objects. The first element of the project is Sound Microscope - an interactive sound installation open from March 2013 in the Gallery of Decorative Art in the Main Building of National Museum in Krakow, 1st floor. National Museum's Gallery of Decorative Art is the biggest exposition in Poland - it shows everyday life in Poland and Western Europe from the early Middle Ages up until Art Nouveau. Exhibits that so far have been locked in cabinets have now gained new life thanks to Museum of Sound project. Now, visiting a museum consists of not only watching objects from the past, but also listening to their story."

The Sonic Art Research Unit provides a forum for dialogue between the fields of Composition and Sound Art; including acousmatic, collaborative, electroacoustic, experimental, interdisciplinary and site-specific practices alongside engagement with field recording, and soundscape studies. The Sonic Art Research Unit builds on established creative dialogue between the fields of Fine Art and Music at Oxford Brookes University.

"As visitors strolled through a recent display of Madame de Pompadour's coffee grinder, an 1840s Sèvres porcelain coffee set, tea canisters, sugar bowls and other European decorative arts at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the scent of roasted coffee beans arose in one room. Bach's "Coffee" Cantata played in the background. Not far away, cocoa pods were not only on display but also meant to be touched. In the final gallery, a tasting station offered two kinds of liquid chocolate, one adapted from an Aztec recipe and the other from an 18th-century French formula. Museums usually aim to offer a feast for the eyes, but this Detroit museum had much more in mind for "Bitter|Sweet: Coffee, Tea & Chocolate," which just closed at the institute. Officials, who used art objects to illustrate how the introduction of those beverages to Europe in the 16th century from Africa, Asia and the Americas changed social and consumption patterns, wanted the exhibition to be a banquet for all five senses."

"Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption" is a multi-year research project culminating in a large-scale exhibition of sound-based art. UCLA Art | Sci Center proposes to explore the relationship between sound as a post-object art form, and our shifting relationship to the world of things as necessitated by climate change.

"RADIOPHRENIA is a temporary art radio station broadcasting intermittently from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. The broadcast schedule includes a series of 14 newly commissioned radio works, 13 Live-to-Air performances as well as live studio shows, screenings, shorts and pre-recorded features. As in previous years the majority of the programme will be made up from selections submitted to an international open call for sound art and radio works."

"IDEA: An overview of sound and music related art at Art Basel Hong Kong WHAT: Art Basel's fifth edition in Hong Kong features 242 premier galleries from 34 countries and territories, as well as a new sector, Kabinett. This year's show features 29 new galleries and half of the galleries showing overall have exhibition spaces in Asia and the Asia Pacific region. The show takes place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre."

"What does it sound like to look for a lost loved one? This art installation doesn't look away from the horror and pain of that reality. At University Museum Contemporary Art in Mexico City last year, multiple speakers wrapped visitors in a sonic collage, recorded from a group of civilians, made up of mostly women, who search the desert for "clandestine graves" of missing loved ones."

"The Listening Reader, edited by Sam Belinfante and Joseph Kohlmaier, brings together a number of essays that explore the role of sound and listening in the context of contemporary art. They engage with the specific timbre that the act of listening, and the paradigm of sound bring to the practice of artists; how this paradigm is present within a broader discourse, including the creative arts, sciences, philosophy and politics; and how art that begins with, or requires listening circulates in the world of the art gallery."

radio and sound artist who works with a focus on expanded radio art in all its forms. "I've been exploring the artistic potential of radio and its use outside of conventional settings from ready mades to creating transmitters and site specific multi media installations which draw on aspects wireless technology and art for the environment. I am investigating radio art and expanded practice across the spectrum, working on projects across air, land, sea and space whilst drawing on experimental radio history as well as focusing on Art for the Environment."