Dead Logics and Worlds: Sound art and sonorous objects. Issue 2 (7th July 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hudson, Martyn; Shaw, Tim
• Is Part Of: Organised sound. Volume 20:Issue 2(2015)
• Page Start: 263
• Page End: 272
• Publication Date: 2015-07-07
• Subjects: Music -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 780.285
• DOI: 10.1017/S135577181500014X
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1355-7718

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="normal"> <title> <x content-type="archive" xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>From the early experimentation with specific sounds in musique concrète (Palombini <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref42">1999</xref>) to the 'anecdotal' music of Luc Ferrari (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref14">1996</xref>) and the ecological sound activism of Hildegard Westerkamp (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref51">2002</xref>), the collecting, composition and recomposition of sonorous objects has been central to sound practice. Some sound art has privileged a relationship with visual arts and the structuring of objects in curated spaces (Licht <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref35">2007</xref>), others with the sound worlds beyond the exhibition (Schafer <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref46">1994</xref>). By examining a specific sound art installation, <italic>Sound and Seclusion</italic> by Tim Shaw, this article reworks the idea of sonorous objects as artefacts displaying different kinds of representations, knowledges or data. This question of sonorous 'knowledge-objects' is particularly important as 'collected sounds' become incorporated into compositions away from their, often remote, spatio-temporal origin out there in the landscape. This article raises three areas for discussion. First, what can sonorous objects tell us about the pre-compositional world (Impett <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref26">2007</xref>)? Second, in what ways can we understand sonorous objects as they are reworked in compositions which re-narrate them? Third, how can we understand sonorous objects as traces and pieces of data as well as aesthetic productions? The article concludes with a case for reworking the very idea of a sonorous object in sound practices as a product of dead logics and dead worlds as it emerges in new ensembles of composition away from its origin.</p> </abstract>