Sound Installation Art

Robin Minard

Over the past years the term sound installation has been used to describe a wide variety of interdisciplinary art making. The term has been adopted with reference to any number of works which in some way integrate the element of sound - generally in a non-conventional manner - and which may otherwise be hard to categorise. This very broad use of the term has made it difficult to propose one single, clear definition for the concept of sound installation. As part of the broader category of installation art the term may be more exactly understood. This category of works has been defined as an art form "which rejects concentration on one object in favour of a consideration of the relationships between a number of elements or of the interaction between things and their contexts". In sound installation we find this particular quality of relationships to be expressed firstly between the audio, visual and/or architectural elements of the work and secondly between the sound and the space for which the work is conceived as well as between the sound, the space and the observer.

Furthermore, installation art has been described as being "concerned not only with art and its boundaries, but with the continual rapprochement, or even fusion, of art and life". We will find this to be an ever more relevant aspect of sound installation as works are increasingly created for presentation within everyday environments and situations.

Interest and activity in the area of sound installation has increased dramatically over the past decade. Such an increase in involvement on the part of artists may be seen simply as a natural tendency for them to fuse various artistic areas within their exploration of technology or, even more simply, as their direct reflection of our multi-media oriented society. I would argue, however, that the cause for this rise in activity lies more deeply within a basic need for artists to merge (or re-merge) art with life; with a need for them to find new and socially relevant modes of artistic expression.

In my own work, the idea of sound installation has meant something very specific: the integration of sound in public environments and therewith the merging of works not only with existing architecture but also with everyday situations and real functioning surroundings. Visual elements of my work have been linked to acoustic considerations and to the broadcasting of sounds in specific ways. Such work inevitably eliminates the boundaries which exist between conventional forms of art making (music, visual arts and architecture) and creates new relationships between the art work itself and the art "consumer".

The fusion of art and life is an essential aspect of the installations. One of my primary concerns has been to establish a dialogue between the work I create, the space within which I install the work and a public who either experiences my work in passing or who lives or functions with my work over a longer period of time. My installations most often aim to intensify the public's experience of the chosen space or to provide the public with a new or enriched perception of their surroundings. In this sense the essence of the art work is expressed not solely through the work itself but rather through the relationship which is established between the work and the space for which it is created.

As a composer, when I began creating sound installations in the mid-1980's, these concepts created a confrontation that required a very new approach to music making. First and foremost, it meant conceiving works within a new social context. The removal of music from the traditional concert hall and the placing of it in the much less formal surroundings of public spaces held implications not only for the character of the music itself but also for my basic attitude as a composer. Emphasis was now to be placed on adapting works to existing conditions and on the merging of them within given surroundings. This meant that the specific needs of the individual space would guide the creative process. In essence "the artistic component [of the work] would be supportive rather than primary". This approach contrasted sharply to the traditionally isolated act of music composition, to its autonomous conception and to its almost exclusively spectacle-oriented character of presentation.

Within such a new approach to music making, traditional musical concepts of form and structure, of register, rhythm, timbre and so forth, seemed inadequate and unsuitable. Traditional methods and goals were therefore re-examined, and the groundwork for a new approach to working with sound was proposed.

Within this new approach, differences were to be reflected not only in the general objectives of the works and in their ultimate "musical meaning", but also in their most basic aspects of conception such as sound medium and methods of broadcast. The fact that works would be designed for integration in public environments in permanent or semi-permanent fashions strongly influenced artistic choices in these areas. Thoughts were eventually directed exclusively to the field of electroacoustic music and to the non-conventional use of loudspeakers. Electroacoustics permits the broadcast of sounds in a continuous fashion and within an unlimited time frame. It allows the creation of quasi-static sound textures - which may be employed to homogeneously "colour" space with sound. Furthermore, it allows for the controlled movement of sounds through space, the creation of new acoustic situations and the slow metamorphosis of sound-space applications.

All of my works and writings deal specifically with sound installation concepts pertaining to electroacoustics. This is not to rule out other sound installation applications which might hold similar objectives or aesthetics (for example sculptural works involving the acoustic generation of sounds) nor to say that the principles I propose may not be applied to other mediums. But as focus is narrowed on the specific genre of electroacoustic sound installation, it becomes clear that this medium is the most flexible and appropriate for the processes I wish to incorporate in my work.

This text is an excerpt from Robin Minard's booklet entitled Sound Installation Art, published in 1996 by the Institut für Elektronische Musik, Graz, Austria. Other IEM booklets include Enumeration in Musical Theory by Harald Fripertinger; Holographie, CAD und Modalanalyse im Dienste der Musik by Gregor Widholm; Der Nachtgallengesang in der Europäischen Kunstmuaik by Helwig Brunner; Grainy - Granularsynthese in Echtzeit by Norbert Schnell; and Strukturgeneratoren - Algorithmische Komposition in Echtzeit by Karlheinz Essl. Booklets are available through the IEM, Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Jakoministr. 3-5, A-8010 Graz.