“Clicks & Pops – Sound Art: New Only In Name” 9/10/15 (Lecture Response)

“Clicks & Pops – Sound Art: New Only In Name” 9/10/15 Lecture Response

Skye Evans

9/16/15

            The lecture panel began with Brett Van Hoesen discussing a bit of sound art history and talked about Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Hoch, Dada, and the Fluxus movements. Many people in the audience seemed to have little knowledge of such topics and I was glad to finally attend a lecture where I understood what was going on. Jean-Paul Perrotte came up with the exhibition name “Clicks & Pops” from an experience in Germany trying to describe to a friend what his electronic sound art was.

            Jean-Paul Perrotte’s “Composition for EEG and Two Computers” from 2014 was the most interesting original composition that the panel talked about. I found it fascinating that he and Caplovitz were able to have brain activity trigger various sound and video effects. I was also amazed that they were able to perform it live on stage. Perrotte refers to it as a performance piece because it is meant to be seen and manipulated live in front of people; it’s not something you can record and listen to.

            Robert Morrison has been teaching at UNR for 40+ years and his work is sculpture-based. I liked how he talked about the objectivity involved with vision, space, and minimalism. Morrison’s brother was a performance artist and he was a big influence on Morrison’s own work. Morrison’s ideas on space were intriguing and really opened my mind a bit on thinking about reverberation and how to utilize it to make people experience different sounds based on where they stood.

            I’ve taken many classes from Louis Niebur so I had already heard about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and how Delia Derbyshire pioneered sound design in the 1960s. Niebur is more of a musicologist and historian rather than a composer. Regardless of having heard it before; I still enjoyed his small crash-course lesson in sound art and how it was a woman who took the reins.

            Tohm Judson is an ex-music professor from Colorado who is now a freelance artist. I was thoroughly bored with the discussion of his work due to his interest in music and video as time-based art. Judson must’ve said “time” no less than 200 times and his theoretical insight on time was something I had already heard plenty of times before and he added nothing new to the topic. I also disagree with his remark that, “Sit absorption is dying because it takes too long to appreciate anything.” This is from a guy who makes games and wants to encourage people to interact and experience the art.

Sit absorption may be dying in the gallery space where people are confused about how to interact with digital art but it certainly isn’t anywhere near dying in the household. Maybe Judson just needed to be more specific but many of his comments were so generalizing that I’m sure he meant to come off exactly how he had. Judson’s talk was the least engaging of the four and was certainly the most absurd.