Launching a Study of Sound Art
Thom Holmes · 2022
Sound art is any artwork that makes use of the idea of sound, the experience or perception of sound, the physical effect of sound, or the residual traces of sonic activity as its primary material and does not fit squarely within the confines and traditions of existing artistic genres. Art does not exist in a vacuum and is always enveloped by the environment and the sounds of the space where it is located. Art evokes many other things as well, including feeling and thought. Sound art might be considered a continuation of what Duchamp once called “non-retinal” art, or an art of ideas that does not merely cater to the eye. The line between sound art and music is often a fuzzy one. Sound can evoke many ideas, from the intellectual to the visceral. Sound art comprises an expanding universe of examples, many of which are unique and unparalleled.