Culture of White Marble

Imagine  a culture where the only legitimate visual form of expression would be a carved marble sculpture. And the only legitimate material would be white marble. All the other forms of visual expression would be considered irrelevant or superfluous, a kind of visual noise.

In this culture there are institutions of higher learning which guard and control the whiteness of the white marble so that no statues  made of greyish or pinkish marble would  not disrupt the canon of the visual arts.

It is obvious that the rule of white marble would not last forever, only for a few centuries. Eventually other light shades of marble would be accepted into the canon. Some avantgartists have even prophesied that one day sculptures could and should be made of even black marble. But the basis of this culture is will always be white marble.

When I started to work with sound, space and installations I soon realized that audible culture is  very much like the culture of white marble. In audible culture only legitimate form of expression is music and the only legitimate sound materials are tuning systems,  scales, meter, musical instruments and other materials of music. If sound is not music or language it is considered noise. Actually there is no concept for audible culture because only culture audible is music.

This situation got me really interested in sound art and non-musical uses of sound.

In my dissertation I will try to understand what is the relationship between sound art and music on the one hand and sound art and art world on the other. In my work  I will focus on the questions of reception, identity and reproduction,  and audiovisuality.

Are there specific modes of listening and hearing that apply to music and other forms of sound? Do we listen music, language and noise with same set of ears and listening attitudes or does our mode of listening depend on the apparent sound material present to us?

Are the identity criteria for music and sound art the same? If not how does this affect their relationship with different forms of reproduction and documentation? What is the relationship between original and copy in music and in sound art?

What happens  when  a visual work of art engages also audiences sense of hearing? What kind listening strategies does a gallery visitor command to her/his aid in this kind of a situation?