Music, Noise, and Silence : Sound in Modern Art

Rhee Jieun

doi:10.17057/kahoma.2007..22.011

This paper charts the short history of sound as part of the 20th-century modern art. In particular, it seeks to explore ways in which sound functions in the realms of visual art. From abstract paintings in the early 20th century to the 2007 art biennale in Venice and Muenster, sound has taken a small yet distinctively important part in the development of modern art. The purity of painting in abstraction that painters pursued in the early 20th century was compared to the non-descriptive quality of music. Time and movement in varying rhythms and speeds also crossed over into the visual realm as the artists discovered new possibilities in film as 'motion picture.' In an effort to depart from the old tradition of representation and narrative arts, many artists thus adopted music as their ideal model, experimenting with its forms as a means of broadening our visual experience. Futurists were those who blatantly extolled machines and their noise. They explored symthesthetic functions of sound and the visual by employing words and sound in their paintings and sound poems. Dadaist also fused the visual with the aural in their performances during the First World War. Marcel Duchamp experimented with sound in his <Music Erratum> and <With Hidden Noise>. Noise was everywhere in the art world, signaling the end of the dominance of the visual in art. In the mid-20th century, we come across John Cage who once again brought the noise into our attention. His famous <4'33''> inspired many artists working in the visual realm. Those who were active in Fluxus and performance art admitted to no small extent their debts to Cage. Including George Brecht, Benjamin Patterson, Paik Nam June. these artists made artworks out of the sound of everyday life. In recent years, we frequently encounter sound as an inseparable component of visual experience in art museums and galleries. Janet Cardiff and Susan Philipsz can be found among new artists who pursue so-called 'Sound Art.' In an attempt to challenge, if not do away with, the hegemony of vision in the experience of 'spectators', these artists try to immerse their perceptual fields with whispering voices and music. By discrediting the visual at the heart of visual art, they deconstruct the ocularcentrism and seeks for the incorporated sensory experience in art.

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* 2022년 이후 발행 논문의 참고문헌은 현재 구축 중입니다.

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