Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art

Description

Listening to Noise and Silence engages with the emerging practice of sound art and the concurrent development of a discourse and theory of sound. In this original and challenging work, Salome Voegelin immerses the reader in concepts of listening to sound artwork and the everyday acoustic environment, establishing an aesthetics and philosophy of sound and promoting the notion of a sonic sensibility. A multitude of sound works are discussed, by lesser known contemporary artists and composers (for example Curgenven, Gasson and Federer), historical figures in the field (Artaud, Feldman and Cage), and that of contemporary canonic artists such as Janet Cardiff, Bill Fontana, Bernard Parmegiani, and Merzbow. Informed by the ideas of Adorno, Merleau-Ponty and others, the book aims to come to a critique of sound art from its soundings rather than in relation to abstracted themes and pre-existing categories. Listening to Noise and Silence broadens the discussion surrounding sound art and opens up the field for others to follow.

Salome Voegelin is Professor of Sound at the London College of Communication, UAL, and an artist and writer engaged in listening as a socio-political practice of sound. She is the author of Listening to Noise and Silence (2010), Sonic Possible Worlds (2014) and The Political Possibility of Sound (2018), all by Bloomsbury Academic. Her work and writing deal with sound and the world sound makes: its aesthetic, social and political realities that are hidden by the persuasiveness of a visual point of view.

"The examples under discussion range from by-now canonical soundworks...to recent works by a clutch of lesser known artists...Voegelin's critical style is so singular that she avoids cliche in the treatment of all these artists, prising them out of a conversation about music and into a challenging treatise on the art of listening." - The Wire "The book's arguments are complex and developed with rigour, making a perceptive contribution to an emerging debate. In its favour, the work consistently forces the listener off-track to think critically about just what it is that makes listening so powerful and so elusive." -Will Montgomery, The Wire, August 2010 Reviewed in the London Review of Books 23 September (UK) 'Listening to Noise and Silence will be of interest to a great many people following breakthrough trends within art and philosophy.' - Art Monthly 'Listening to Noise and Silence will be of interest to a great many people following breakthrough trends in art and philosophy.' -- Art Monthly 'Salome Voegelin has written an excellent book about sound art, escaping cliche and easy categorizations. She establishes a proper aesthetics and philosophy of sound, with a compelling phenomenological account of noise and silence.' -- Neural In Voegelin's evocative image, noise holds the listener hostage to his or her own listening... Listening to Noise and Silence contains many moments that sound artists and others will find insightful. -- Avant Music News