Sound sculpture
Encyclopedia
Sound sculpture is an intermedia
and time based art form in which sculpture
or any kind of art object produces sound
, or the reverse (in the sense that sound is manipulated in such a way as to create a sculptural as opposed to temporal form or mass). Most often sound sculpture artists were primarily either visual artists
or composer
s, not having started out directly making sound sculpture.
Cymatics
and kinetic
art has influenced sound sculpture. Sound sculpture is sometimes site-specific
.
Intermedia
Intermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
and time based art form in which sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
or any kind of art object produces sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
, or the reverse (in the sense that sound is manipulated in such a way as to create a sculptural as opposed to temporal form or mass). Most often sound sculpture artists were primarily either visual artists
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
or composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
s, not having started out directly making sound sculpture.
Cymatics
Cymatics
Cymatics is the study of visible sound and vibration, a subset of modal phenomena. Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste, or liquid...
and kinetic
Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
art has influenced sound sculpture. Sound sculpture is sometimes site-specific
Site-specific art
Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork...
.
Sound artists include:
- Maryanne AmacherMaryanne AmacherMaryanne Amacher was an American composer and installation artist.-Biography:Amacher was born in Kane, Pennsylvania, to an American nurse and a Swiss freight train worker. As the only child, she grew up playing the piano. Amacher left Kane to attend the University of Pennsylvania on a full...
- Baschet BrothersBaschet BrothersThe Baschet Brothers are two French brothers named François Baschet and Bernard Baschet who collaborate on creating sound sculptures and inventing musical instruments, such as the cristal Baschet. François Baschet is a sculptor and Bernard Baschet is an engineer...
- Dennis Bathory-KitszDennis Báthory-KitszDennis Báthory-Kitsz Dennis Báthory-Kitsz (born March 14, 1949, Plainfield, New Jersey) Dennis Báthory-Kitsz (born March 14, 1949, Plainfield, New Jersey) (pseudonyms: Dennis Bathory, Dennis Kitsz, Dennis J. Kitsz, Dennis Bathory Kitsz, Kalvos Gesamte, Grey Shadé, D.B...
- Harry BertoiaHarry BertoiaHarry Bertoia , was an Italian-born artist, sculptor, and modern furniture designer....
- Alexander CalderAlexander CalderAlexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
- Henry DaggHenry DaggHenry Dagg is a sound sculptor who formerly worked as a sound engineer for the BBC. His works include a pin barrel harp or sharpsichord which was commissioned for the English Folk Dance and Song Society and a cat organ which he played to the amusement of an audience of celebrities at a garden...
- Hugh DaviesHugh DaviesHugh Seymour Davies was a musicologist, composer, and inventor of experimental musical instruments.Davies was born in Exmouth, Devon, England. After attending Westminster School, he studied music at Worcester College, Oxford from 1961 to 1964. Shortly after he traveled to Cologne, Germany to work...
- Bill FontanaBill FontanaBill Fontana is known internationally for his pioneering experiments in sound art.Fontana attended New School for Social Research in New York and studied both music and philosophy. He traveled to Australia, and also stayed in Japan and Germany composing. Fontana began making sound sculptures in 1976...
- Terry FoxTerry Fox (artist)Terry Fox was an American video, conceptual, sound, and performance artist.-Biography:Fox was born in Seattle, Washington. At the age of seventeen, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, later referencing the cycles of illness and wellness in several artworks...
- Ellen FullmanEllen FullmanEllen Fullman is a composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area...
- Bernhard GálBernhard GálBernhard Gál is an Austrian artist, composer and musicologist.-Biography:Bernhard Gál works between the categories, creating music for instruments and electro-acoustic compositions, as well as art installations. Many of his intermedia art projects and sound installations present combinations of...
- Rolf GehlhaarRolf GehlhaarRolf Gehlhaar in Breslau , is an American composer.Gehlhaar is the son of a German rocket scientist, who emigrated to the United States in 1953 to work at a rocket-development research centre in New Mexico...
- Nigel Helyer
- Christopher JanneyChristopher JanneyChristopher Janney is an American composer/artist/architect known for his work on the interrelation of architecture and music. Sometimes he attempts to make architecture more like music as in his sound sculptures titled "Urban Musical Instruments" of which "Soundstair" is one example...
- Hans Jenny
- Phil KlinePhil KlinePhil Kline is an American composer. After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in English Literature, he formed the New York No Wave band The Del-Byzanteens in the early 1980s with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and painter James Nares, collaborated with photographer Nan Goldin on the...
- Yuri LandmanYuri LandmanYuri Landman is a Dutch experimental luthier who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a list of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japanese and Liam Finn...
- Alvin LucierAlvin LucierAlvin Lucier is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and...
- Bruce NaumanBruce NaumanBruce Nauman is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives in Galisteo, New Mexico....
- Hans OtteHans OtteHans Otte born Hans Günther Franz Otte in Plauen, Germany was a German composer, pianist, radio promoter, and author of many pieces of musical theatre, sound installations, poems, drawings, and art videos. From 1959 to 1984 he served as music director for Radio Bremen...
- Paul PanhuysenPaul PanhuysenPaul Panhuysen is a Dutch composer, visual and sound artist. He founded and directed Het Apollohuis, an art space that functioned during the 80's and 90's having artists doing sound installations, sound sculptures, and concerts about free improvisation, experimental music, and electronic...
- Liz PhillipsLiz PhillipsLiz Phillips is an American artist specializing in sound art and interactive art. She was one of the first artists to make interactive sound sculpture. Her installations create sounds in relation to live forms. Phillips has exhibited her work at numerous art museums, alternative spaces, festivals,...
- Amy Pickles
- Manuel Rocha IturbideManuel Rocha IturbideManuel Rocha Iturbide is a Mexican composer and sound artist.-Biography:Manuel Rocha Iturbide was born in 1963 in Mexico City, he started musical studies when he was 13 years old. In 1983, after studying musical pedagogy in Lyon France for one year, he decided to start a career as composer at the...
- Stan ShaffAudium (theater)Audium is a unique sound art phenomenon that has been presented weekly in San Francisco since 1967. Audium is a creation of composer Stan Shaff that is performed on original equipment designed by Doug McEachern...
- Derek ShielDerek ShielDerek Shiel is a Dublin-born, London-based painter, sculptor, writer, and film-maker.-Education:Shiel was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh and the Edinburgh College of Art, where he won the Andrew Grant Scholarship for two years, completed a Diploma in Art, and was awarded a post-graduate...
- Jean TinguelyJean TinguelyJean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
- TrimpinTrimpinTrimpin is a Seattle, Washington-based kinetic sculptor, sound artist, musician, and composer, most of whose pieces integrate both sculpture and music in some way, and many of which make use of computers to play these instruments...
- Peter VogelPeter VogelPeter Vogel may refer to:* Peter Vogel , German actor, appeared in Holocaust miniseries* Peter Vogel , German footballer* Peter Vogel , Polish murderer and later banker...
Sound sculptures with wikipedia articles
- Blackpool High Tide OrganBlackpool High Tide OrganThe Blackpool High Tide Organ is a -tall tidal organ constructed in 2002 as part of "The Great Promenade Show" series of sculptures situated along Blackpool's New Promenade ....
- Sea organSea organThe Sea organ is an architectural object located in Zadar, Croatia and an experimental musical instrument which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. The waves create somewhat random but harmonic sounds...
- Singing Ringing Tree (Panopticons)Singing Ringing Tree (Panopticons)The Singing Ringing Tree is a wind powered sound sculpture resembling a tree set in the landscape of the Pennine mountain range overlooking Burnley, in Lancashire....
Further reading
- Paul PanhuysenPaul PanhuysenPaul Panhuysen is a Dutch composer, visual and sound artist. He founded and directed Het Apollohuis, an art space that functioned during the 80's and 90's having artists doing sound installations, sound sculptures, and concerts about free improvisation, experimental music, and electronic...
(Ed.) (1986). Echo : the images of sound. Eindhoven: Apollohuis. ISBN 90-71638-03-0. - John Grayson (1975). Sound sculpture : a collection of essays by artists surveying the techniques, applications, and future directions of sound sculpture. VancouverVancouverVancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
: A.R.C. Publications. ISBN 0-88985-000-3.