Sonic Installation Art
This page is dedicated to providing a sample of some of my thoughts, presented as writing, about the discipline of sonic installation art. This is an artistic discipline which I actively practive and have spent over a decade studing within adademia. This writing partly originates from drafts of my Ph.D. thesis as well as from various spouts of mid-night inspiration. I have provided a list of relevent references at the bottom of the page to support these writing excepts. There you can find links to related writings by myself and others along with some projects I have created that were inspired by this topic. I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions/corrections/concerns you would like to chat about =).
Environmetally-Powered Sonic Installation Art
While in the 1950s the use of technology within sonic installation art was mostly
limited to musique concr`ete-inspired loudspeaker- and microphone-facilitated audio
capture, manipulation, and playback applications, by the late-1960s, outdoor sonic
installation artworks began leveraging a broader range of technology. A common
installation methodology that fosters in-situ environmental listening involves leveraging
environmental forces to directly power the work’s soundscape augmentations
or electronic systems. Reviewing these particular works provides insight to a broad
range of creative and unconventional technology applications which can inform the
artistic realisation of this thesis’s research objectives.
Wind, which already exhibits cochlear properties, is a force artists have harnessed
to power sonic installation artworks. For Australia, the first recognised ‘sound
sculpture’ The Singing Ship (1970) by Peggy West-Moreland, Steve Kele, George
Cain, and David Thomas consisted of a giant aeolian harp built on a seaside
cliff which is actuated by the wind to produce sounds [45]. In addition, Max
Eastley’s aeolian-powered Installation at Dartmoor (1973), Perspex Wind Flute
Maquettes (1975), and Aeolian Metal (2016) have enjoyed public and critical
success by leveraging aeolian principles with a range of materials. A
less-conventional wind-powered approach can be found with the artist Harry Bertoia
who in 1966 created an outdoor sounding sculpture intended to be played by large
metal rods which resonate at particular frequencies when they strike each other.
Providing another approach is Douglas Hollis’s Sound Site (1977) and A Sound
Garden (1983) which feature tuned organ pipes sounded by wind activity [85].
Another environmental force frequently leveraged for sonic installation art is water.
Max Neuhaus’s Water Whistle (1971-83) installation series consists of carefully
arranging and installing a complex configuration of pipes, pumps, and whistles into
swimming pools to create underwater aqua-sonic experiences.
Alternatively, The Wave Organ (1986) by Peter Richards and George Gonzalez
produces musical notes through a network of pipes carefully sized and implanted
into the ground that vocalise when air is pushed through them by tidal forces.
Another salient water-powered sonic
installation artwork is Jem Finer’s Score for a Hole in the Ground (2005) where
drips of water seeping through natural ground cover strike bowls placed in a deep
chamber in the ground to produce sound which is then amplified through a large
cone aesthetically similar to a gramophone horn [86].
In addition to wind- and water-powered works, there are numerous sonic art
installations that harvest solar energy. An example which follows this paradigm is
Jeff Feddersen’s EarthSpeaker (2007) which consists of several “large solar-powered
nocturnal acoustic sculptures” that “absorb solar energy during the day and re-radiate
the energy as sound at dusk” [87], [88]. There are a number of public art installations
that follow a similar, practically-minded, application of solar power that charges
batteries to power the installation such as Mags Harries and Lajos H´eder’s Solar
Sunflowers (2009) [89] and Dan Corson’s Flower Power (2013) [90]. Alternatively,
the discipline of solarsonics creates battery-less electrical audio synthesis systems
that directly transpose light energy into sound. Scott Smallwood and Jared Bielby’s
Solarsonics: Patterns of Ecological Praxis in Solar-powered Sound Art provides
a thorough overview of historical attempts at solarsonics starting in the 19th
century through to contemporary times. Particularly salient solarsonic artists and
researchers include Alexander Graham Bell (with his Photophone [91]), Felix Hess,
M. R. Duffey [92], Nigel Helyer [93], Alvin Lucier [94], Craig Colorusso [95], and
Smallwood’s own work including Coronium 3500 (Lucie’s Halo) (2014) [91], [96].
Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger provide an outlaying approach which leverages
acoustic principles and physics to augment outdoor environments [45]. Odland and
Auinger are known for their use of “tuning tubes” which they incorporate in several
installations including Harmonic Bridge (1998-), Sonic Vista (2011-), and Harmonic
Conduit (2017-) [97], [98]. The tuning tubes “responds to the surrounding sonic
input by creating an overtone series through sympathetic resonance. Harmonic
intervals are emphasised while background noise is suppressed” [99]. More examples
of acoustic- and physics-based sonic art installations include Douglas Hollis’s
Archimedes (1987), Listening Vessels (1987), and Discovery Green (2008) where
large parabolic listening dishes passively collect and focus sounds [100],
[101].
This discussion introduced sonic installation artworks whose soundscape augmentations
were either directly generated or indirectly powered by wind, water, solar,
and acoustic energy. While the application of technology varied, these works collectively
embraced in-situ natural environments as their source of power and therefore
highlighted environmental conditions in real-time such as wind speed and direction,
ambient light brightness, and the force and patterns of waves. While the realisation
strategies behind these works varied, Douglas Hollis describes the philosophy behind
his choice in methodology in a 1985 interview:
What I feel I do is create structures that use a particular sensory level to make
people more aware of the homogeneity of a place. In some ways, I think of
my pieces as excuses for conversations on the site about the site. They’re
not preoccupied with themselves but act as sensory extensions that make the
ongoing phenomena more perceptible [85].
As described by Hollis, instead of creating art which is placed in an outdoor location,
by being powered by environmental forces directly, this approach takes advantage
of the unique and variable properties of outdoor environments to integrate the
sculptures with the exhibition venue. Furthermore, Hollis’s quote hints at the
potential in augmenting natural environments to promote awareness of in-situ
conditions. Thereby, the exhibition methodology of these environmentally powered
works align with some philosophies adopted within the environmental art movement
where the artist’s sculptures are intended to highlight and reflect components of the
in-situ natural environment.
References and Suggested Readings
This writing has been adapted from prior informal and published works including my PhD thesis from Victoria University of Wellington and my Master's thesis from California Institute of the Arts. The reference numbers have been carired over from this document to ease my personal workload. I am planning on expanding this section to include more in-depth dicussions that are not restrained by the limitations imposed by writing a PhD thesis. Stay tuned for future writings! If you are interested in reading my formal published works from which most of this writing originates, you can find it on this page HERE. Meanwhile, for easier reference, below are the in-text references (with links to some sources).
References for Environmentally-Powered Sonic Installation art
[85] J. Kelly, “Conversation with Doug Hollis,” Places, vol. 2, no. 3, 1985.
[86] J. Finer, “Jem Finer: Score for a Hole in the Ground,” Leonardo Music Journal, vol. 21,
pp. 77–77, 2011.
[87] Tony Canonico, EarthSpeaker, Nocturnal Audio Sculptures, 2007. [Online]. Available:
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2007/sep/05/earthspeaker-nocturnalaudio-sculptures/
(visited on 05/30/2022).
[88] Jeff Feddersen, Jeff Feddersen : Current Projects. [Online]. Available:
http://fddrsn.net/text/current.html (visited on 05/30/2022).
[89] V. Bradley, Mueller’s solar SunFlowers in Austin, TX, May 2022. [Online]. Available:
https://atxtoday.6amcity.com/mueller-solar-sunflowers-austin-tx/
(visited on 05/30/2022).
[90] C. Shahan, Seattle’s Renewable Flower Power; Solar-Powered Flower Installation
Sonic Bloom, Aug. 2013. [Online]. Available:
https://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/seattles-renewable-flower-power-solar-powered-flowerinstallation-sonic-bloom/
(visited on 05/30/2022).
[91] S. Smallwood and J. Bielb, “Solarsonics: Patterns of Ecological Praxis in Solarpowered
Sound Art,” Music and Ecologies of Sound, p. 11, 2013.
[92] M. Duffey, “The Vocal Memnon and Solar Thermal Automata,” Leonardo Music
Journal, vol. 17, pp. 51–54, Dec. 2007.
[93] Nigel Helyer, Sonicobjects. [Online]. Available: https://www.sonicobjects.com/
(visited on 06/11/2022).
[94] A. Lucier and A. Margolin, “Conversation with Alvin Lucier,” Perspectives of New
Music, pp. 50–58, 1981.
[95] A. Daniels, “Elements, fancy auras: An exploration into the process, intention and
aesthetic of installation art,” Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 2013.
[96] S. Smallwood, “Solar Sound Arts: Creating Instruments and Devices Powered by
Photovoltaic Technologies,” in NIME, 2011, pp. 28–31.
[97] Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger: Harmonic Bridge — MASS MoCA, Jun. 2015. [Online].
Available:
https://massmoca.org/event/bruce-odland-sam-auingerharmonic-bridge/ (visited on 05/18/2022).
[98] Odland + Auinger - To understand our culture fully, we must understand our noise.
Odland and Auinger decode the urban culture from a hearing perspective. They’ve
listened for three decades to the cultural waveform. Cities live. O+A add harmonic
structure and resonance. [Online]. Available: https://odland-auinger.com/
(visited on 06/06/2022).
[99] BOX 30/70 - A project by Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger. [Online]. Available:
https://netzradio.de/box3070/text/engtext.html
(visited on 06/11/2022).
[100] P. Woods, Listening Vessels at Houston Discovery Green Park. [Online]. Available:
https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Listening-Vessels-at-
Houston-Discovery-Green-Park (visited on 05/30/2022).
[101] Judy Bloch and Marina McDougall, Eds., Over the Water: Douglas Hollis. Solstice
Press, Oakland, 2018.