Sound Research

"For the design of a new facility whose mission is to empower the blind, sound played an unusually prominent role."

"The Weather Warlock tells weather for people who can't see. Musician and electronic instrument inventor Quintron built a device that converts atmospheric conditions into sound, which he uses in his daily broadcast, "Weather for the Blind.""

A great sound-related publication with guest editors that takes on different topics.

QUEER TRASH SYMPOSIUM was an auspicious meeting of some very bright and very queer minds, the evening showcases the myriad ways that queers make sound, make sound queer, or skim around terms that may attempt to contain queer life.

"Percussion is also a discipline that is overwhelmingly considered to be "for boys." I recently began asking myself why I chose drums as a nine-year-old, when I showed an aptitude for just about any kind of instrument. I had wanted to play piano when I was five, but was never given lessons. Why drums, then ? Why not still piano four years later ? Even as I write this, I have some regret that I never became a pianist."

"Sarah Hennies's highly personal explorations of "queer and trans identity, love, intimacy and psychoacoustics" are increasingly played by others."

This is my video from To a Great City, part of the project Stillspotting. This was one of 5 locations visited during the tour. The 60-degree-view from the 46th floor of 7 World Trade Center. The music was playing throughout the empty floor of the building.

"Concentrating the mind and standing still often seem two of the most elusive experiences in New York. In To a Great City, the second edition of the Guggenheim's multidisciplinary stillspotting nyc program that ran from September 15-18 and 22-25, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and the NYC- and Oslo-based architectural firm Snøhetta sought to provide New Yorkers with opportunities to do just that. At five sites located along the perimeter of Ground Zero, Pärt's minimalist, monastic compositions permeated a series of spaces where large white balloons were the only physical alterations to already naturally seductive spots. The installation was a clear ode to New York, and the tenth anniversary of 9/11 was both physically and psychologically just beyond the immediate experience, providing a quiet and elegant elegy."

This site explores and archives the many questions, compositions and ramblings of sound that listeners and creators experience. From abstraction to music, all forms of sound art and experimental recordings will be presented here. Every entry has a playable audio clip with relevant photography and notes. It is my goal for this site to capture the interests of audiophiles, artists and the merely curious. Sound is Art showcases recordings from around the world and submissions for sharing work on this site is open to all. Please note that I am not a critic or an agent. I am a sound artist. I run this site to give back to the artist community and to honor the beautiful sound work that often goes unheard.

"Silenced voices of disappeared dissidents and migrant slaves. Melodies lost to the violence of empire. Vanished monuments marking anti-colonial choruses. Hidden, transgressive dances of migrant domestic workers. Inaudible and obscured, these sounds and movements haunt Hong-Kai Wang's work. Rather than erecting monuments to these pasts, Wang uses listening, sounding, and singing as conduits to these lost or absent acts across temporal and geopolitical distances. This practice, situated around sound both real and imagined, might be described as anti-monumental."

"For over a year now, London has been a simmering site of dormant musical gatherings and suspended physical proximities, prompting me to wonder what's happened to the visceral, tactile energies through which collective musical formations gain so much of their social and emotional force. As Ben Assiter points out, the migration of electronic dance music online during the pandemic accelerated currents that were already underway with the ubiquity of livestream platforms like Boiler Room. With physical assembly prohibited, the dematerialization of collective musical experience gave rise to a whole new level of face-to-screen "participation," as solitary DJs began broadcasting live from empty clubs to bedroom audiences, who in turn performed "ironic dance floor interaction[s]" in the chat boxes."

"Talbot Rice Gallery and Edinburgh Art Festival unveiled a new sound installation by artist Emeka Ogboh (b. 1977, Nigeria) at Edinburgh's Burns Monument on 29 July 2021. The public artwork, co-commissioned by Talbot Rice Gallery and Edinburgh Art Festival, is a response to the ongoing theatre surrounding the UK's departure from the European Union."

On 29 January 2020, as the United Kingdom departed the European Union (EU) and as a final gesture of farewell, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) took to their feet in Brussels, held hands and sang Robert Burns' 'Auld Lang Syne' - a song which has come to represent solidarity, friendship and open doors. The following week, Nigerian artist Emeka Ogboh stood in the Robert Burns Monument in Edinburgh and conceived of Song of the Union, a sound installation featuring singers from all 27 EU member states living in Scotland today, as well as one from the recently departed UK. The resulting polyphonic choir gives voice to those who were unable to vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and has been created at a time when the post-Brexit reality is still far from resolved.

"With work that is a delightful mix of archaic technologies, Aura Satz explores the complex marriage of human and machine and the uncertainty it engenders in bodily awareness and human agency. "

"In many ways, Samson Young is the ideal sound artist - he is a composer with a PhD in music from Princeton. I asked Samson if he was bothered by being defined by the label "sound artist," which is frequently applied to him. He replied understatedly: "Some of my works are not about sound." But when I looked at those works, I found that they were surely about sound - or, at the very least, they could be understood from the perspective of sound art. In fact, his non-musical practices always begin with a keen sensitivity to sound and invite us to perceive sounds that are typically not heard."

"Two recent exhibitions by Icelander Jónsi and a current one by Oslo-based American Camille Norment reveal how innovative and impactful these two sound-based artists really are. While they certainly differ, they also have much in common. Both utilize sound - melodic and dissonant, subtle and emphatic - in immersive installations that respond to and also transform architectural spaces. Both are acclaimed musicians and composers; their experience as live performers no doubt influences their artworks. For both, sound in their work is music, or song, and also a primary material - they sculpt with sound. Both artists' works are also palpably soulful: they affect visitors sonically, visually, emotionally, and - very likely - spiritually too."

"Artist Jana Winderen transports us underwater, to listen to the sonic wonders of the sea."

"O'Daniel has worn hearing aids since she was 3. The ones she has now are digital, and sometimes they give her a heightened sense of sound: A car engine hum becomes earsplitting. Within daily experiences of frustration, and I do a lot of compensating, there's also this kind of radical, heightened attention," O'Daniel said. "And that mix, I find just fascinating. O'Daniel has spent most of her art career focused on recreating those jarring sounds.

Art cannot be created or destroyed - only remixed. In a convincing talk from TEDGlobal 2012, director Kirby Ferguson highlights that remixing, referencing and reproducing previous innovations allows artists to engage in a cultural dialogue and allows art, technology and society to continue evolving.