What Do We Know by Hearing?

Sound art and sound installations are not always recognised as an independent art form. They are usually considered a form of music, or classified as a sub-genre of experimental music. The reason for this is the hegemony of music: the culture of music has traditionally held a dominant position over the sphere of audible culture that is outside verbal communication.

Audible culture is conceived of as consisting of speech and music, where noise and other sounds have no place.

As an artistic discipline, sound art has only existed for a relatively short time. It developed gradually during the 20^th century in the form of experiments made by artists, without any significant cultural or discursive ballast. Sound art emerged in a new, previously unknown arena: the various aspects and potentials of hearing had not been described outside the narrow sphere of music.

As a sound artist, I am preoccupied with the question of why the documentation of sound art is so difficult, whereas the documentation of music has always been easy.

In a sense, music as an art form emerged at the same time as the methods for its documentation. Similarly, sound art, sound installations in particular, seems to resist attempts at its documentation and recording.

Why do sound art and music, which are perceived as being very closely related, differ so much in terms of the documentation of works, the concepts of the original and its copy, a work and its instances?

In the production part of my research, I try to understand what happens when the recipient encounters a work that challenges not only the sense of sight, but also hearing. What happens in the recipient’s mind when he or she has to modify listening strategies conditioned by linguistic communication and music to fit the new situation?

According to John Cage, all sounds can be listened to as “music”. I personally am convinced that we have many different ways of listening to different types of sound environments, and that we switch our modes of listening as situations and our intentions change.

In my radio works, I have tried to determine which elements in auditory media can make listeners change their mode of listening. Is it possible to create a situation where the “soundscape” of a sound work is not perceived in musical terms, but can instead be considered through several, perhaps even contradictory, frameworks of listening? My doctoral research is a continuation of this project.

Supervisor: Juhani Liimatainen, Professor of Sound Design, Theatre Academy