EDITORIAL: #224: Arts of Sound SARAH LAST
The image embracing the exterior of this issue of Art Monthly Australia (AMA) is the interior of an anechoic chamber, a room designed to create the (rather superficial human) construct of 'silence' through its elimination of external environmental noise such as echo, radio frequency and acoustic sounds. An anechoic chamber seems a peculiar visual preface to an issue entirely dedicated to the Arts of Sound. However, this gesture of silence is aptly allegorical; it's a poetic pause button, a poignant cue, and akin to the periods of 'rest or silence employed in musical compositions. In this instance the anechoic interior signifies the necessary transitional silence required to (re)orient and wholly appreciate the noise within these pages.
The anechoic chamber on the cover has far greater resonance than the silence of its interior. It is actually the panoramic nucleus of Telepathy, an installation constructed by artists Joyce Hinterding and David Haines, whose work is consistently concerned with sourcing and utilising hidden energy forces for audio and/or visual means. Their anechoic chamber was partly an exercise in sensory deprivation, challenging the audience to enter, acknowledge, and rediscover the veiled electromagnetic and sonic worlds within themselves and again once outside the chamber.
Also embedded in the Telepathy work are references to social agency, performative and sculptural practices. It is distinctly interdisciplinary, and such interdisciplinarity is emblematic of the many artists, works and ideas discussed in this issue. Sound, like the complex world around us, is an intrinsic part of the works discussed. However, it should also be noted that such arts of sound practices, more often than not, oscillate between the music/performance and visual/media arts practice areas.
When The Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts Music Board to instate the Embracing Sound (ES) program in mid-2006, it was rather momentous: two national cultural organisations were formally recognising the Australian sound art community and its prevalence within the domains of media arts and music. Such recognition, while affirming the vibrancy of the sound arts sector, also acknowledged the need for enhanced sustainability through formalising broader networks. Whilst many Australian sound arts practitioners are held in high international regard, they are relatively unknown in Australia's contemporary arts sector. The siting therefore of this special AMA print and DVD publication focussing on the Arts of Sound endeavours to consciously contextualise sound art practices within the wider and well-established contemporary arts arena.
A major aspect of recent media arts theory has been the emphasis on the need for media arts to be considered within its interdisciplinary intercultural contexts, rather than the traditional modernist functions and methodologies applied to historicisation and canonisation in art history. Douglas Kahn has been an international leader in contextualising auditory practices within 20th century arts theory, and more recently an underlying thesis of his work has been ... one that rewrites the history of communication (1). With such a sustained and rigorous focus, together with the respect Kahn's writings have already demonstrated for Australian practitioners, it is entirely fitting that we utilised Kahn's influence as a guest editor. Far from being a parochial editorial process, this publication amplifies many distinctly different viewpoints from Australian and New Zealand writers and artists.
ES and AMA wholly thank Douglas Kahn for his tireless dedication and informed input to this publication. With the majority of the dialogue and editing process being trans-hemispherical (Australia, New Zealand and USA), this project required an above-and-beyond level of commitment. AMA editor Maurice O'Riordan is to be congratulated for bravely accepting and following through with the challenge I posed to him in 2008; an issue focussing on the Arts of Sound is somewhat of a paradigm shift for AMA. Australia Council for the Arts Music Board and the Visual Arts Board's International Strategies Review provided the core funding support to bring this issue, its complementary DVD featuring four commissioned works along with additional previously published material by Australian artists, and Kahn's lecture tour into fruition. ANAT and AMA would particularly like to thank the venues hosting Douglas Kahn during this lecture tour. They include: TURA New Music, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) @ Edith Cowan University, The Edge @ State Library of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, National Film and Sound Archive, Museum of Contemporary Art and our media partners Sound Travellers. Finally our gratitude must be emphatically expressed to the artists and writers involved in the publication. Without them we would all be suffering from sensory deprivation.
Sarah Last
ANAT, Embracing Sound Program Manager
Notes
1. Statement by Douglas Kahn for an ANAT media release, October 2009.
Joyce Hinterding and David Haines, Telepathy (detail), 2008, exterior view, Performance Space, Sydney, 2008. Image courtesy the artists. Photograph by Michael Myers.
