Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:27:19.849Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sound Art or Klangkunst? A reading of the German and English literature on sound art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2009

Andreas Engström  and
Åsa Stjerna
Andreas Engström
Affiliation:
Sankt Eriksgatan 114, 113 31 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: andreas.engstrom@music.su.se
Åsa Stjerna
Affiliation:
Wittstocksgatan 8, 115 24 Stockholm, Sweden. http://www.asastjerna.se
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article is a study on the literature of sound art from two languange areas, German and English. The text reveals two different discourses. The German texts on Klangkunst (sound art in German) focus upon the sound material’s relation to a spatial location where sound sculptures and installations are given central focus. These are genres that transcend the old divisions between spatial arts (Raumkunst) and the time-based arts (Zeitkunst). A strong emphasis on the dual aspect of seeing and hearing could be described as a central point of departure. Klangkunst concerns an investigation of both time and space, through ear and eye. In the English literature on sound art, there are often references to sound’s inner aesthetical qualities. The perspectives on sound’s relation to room is evident also here, but the perspectives are however broader, in the sense that the aspects of space and locality are diversified and pluralistic. One will find an even larger scope of literature and references if the area of sound art also includes cultural-studies perspectives on sound, sonic experiences and acoustic phenomena, the influx of new technologies on the everyday soundscape, and sound design. These are areas often referred to when speaking about the ‘sonic turn’. The way the term sound art is handled in English texts is often very vague. The German study of Klangkunst developed within the academic field of musicology. There has been a fruitful collaboration between musicologists, publishing houses, music journals, galleries, academic institutions and higher art education, which together has helped to establish Klangkunst as an artistic expression and theoretical discourse. This strong intellectual infrastructure has been important in the ‘construction’ of the concept Klangkunst. The two separate theoretical discourses not only deal with the concept of sound art differently. Although many of the artists are dealt with in both the English and the German literature, there are very seldom references to the German literature in the English texts. This tendency is not reciprocal.

Type
Research Article
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 11 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Assche, Christine van (ed.). 2002. Sonic Process. A new geography of sounds. Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Barthelmes, Barbara. 1986. Musik und Raum – ein Konzept der Avantgarde. Musik und Raum. Basel: GS-Verlag.Google Scholar
Barthelmes, Barbara. 1999. Klangkunst – eine neue Gattung oder ein interdisziplinäres Feld? In Jörg Stelkens and Hans G. Tillmann (eds.) KlangForschung ’98. Saarbrücken: PFAU Verlag.Google Scholar
Barthelmes, Barbara. 2006. Sound Art in Musicological Discourse – From Synaesthesia as a Symbol-Forming Process to Sound Art as a Genre. In Anne Thurmann-Jajes, Sabine Breitsameter and Winfried Pauleit (eds.) Sound Art – Zwischen Avantgarde und Popkultur. Cologne: Salon Verlag.Google Scholar
Cox, Christoph. 2003. Return to Form: Christoph Cox on neo-modernist sound art. Artforum (November).Google Scholar
Cox, Christoph. 2006. Von Musik zum Klang – Sein als Zeit in der Klangkunst. In Helga de la Motte-Haber, Matthias Osterwold and Georg Weckwerth (eds.) Sonambiente Berlin 2006: Klangkunst Sound Art. Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag.Google Scholar
Cox, Christoph Warner, Daniel (eds.). 2004. Audio Culture. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Drobnick, Jim. 2004. Listening Awry. In Jim Drobnick (ed.) Aural Cultures. Toronto and Banff: YYZ Books/WPG Editions.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Ken, LaBelle, Brandon. 2003. Surface Tension: Problematics of site. Los Angeles: Errant Bodies Press.Google Scholar
Engström, Andreas, Stjerna, Åsa. 2006/07. Ljudkonst – den svenska modellen [Sound Art – the Swedish Model]. Nutida Musik 4/1.Google Scholar
Errant Bodies, 2008. http://www.errantbodies.org/main.html (accessed 11 August 2008).Google Scholar
Föllmer, Golo. 1999. Klangorganisation in öffentlischen Raum [Sound Organisation in Public Spaces]. In Helga de la Motte-Haber (ed.) Klangkunst – Tönende Objekte, Klingende Räume, Handbuch der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Bd 12. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag.Google Scholar
Hertling, Nele. 2006. Ein Rückblick ‘Für Augen und Ohren’ 1980/‘Sonambiente festival für hören und sehen 1996’. In Helga de la Motte-Haber, Matthias Osterwold and Georg Weckwerth (eds.). Sonambiente Berlin 2006: Klangkunst Sound Art. Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag.Google Scholar
Kahn, Douglas. 1999. Noise Water Meat: A history of sound in the arts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahn, Douglas. 2005. Sound Art, Art, Music. The Iowa Review Web 7(1) (August). http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/mainpages/new/feb06/kahn.html (accessed 11 August 2008).Google Scholar
LaBelle, Brandon. 2006. Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
LaBelle, Brandon, Roden, Steve (eds.). 1999. Site of Sound: Of architecture and the ear. Los Angeles: Errant Bodies Press/Smart Art Press.Google Scholar
Lander, Dan (ed.). 1990. Sound by Artists. Toronto: Art Metropole/Walter Phillips Gallery.Google Scholar
Licht, Alan. 2007. Sound Art. Beyond music, between categories. New York: Rizzoli International Publications.Google Scholar
Maur, Karin von. 1999. Vom Klang der Bilder. Munich.Google Scholar
Metzger, Christoph. 2006. Sounds Typically German – Klangkunst. World New Music Magazine 16.Google Scholar
Motte-Haber, Helga de la. 1990. Musik und Bildende Kunst. Von der Tonmalerei zur Klangskulptur. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag.Google Scholar
Motte-Haber, Helga de la. 1996. Klangkunst – eine neue Gattung? In Akademie der Künste Berlin (ed.) Klangkunst. Munich: Prestel.Google Scholar
Motte-Haber, Helga de la (ed.). 1999. Klangkunst – Tönende Objekte, Klingende Räume, Handbuch der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Bd 12. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag.Google Scholar
Motte-Haber, Helga de la. 2002. Esthetic Perception in New Artistic Contexts: Aspects – hypotheses – unfinished thoughts’. In Bernd Schulz (ed.). Resonanzen/Resonancen – Aspekte der Klangkunst/Aspects of Sound Art. Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag.Google Scholar
Motte-Haber, Helga de la, Osterwold, Matthias Weckwerth, Georg (eds.). 2006. Sonambiente Berlin 2006: Klangkunst Sound Art. Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag.Google Scholar
Sanio, Sabine. 2000. Aspekte der Klangkunst. In Sabine Sanio, Bettina Wackernagel and Jutta Ravenna (eds.) Musik im Dialog III. Klangkunst, Musiktheater. Jahrbuch der Berliner Gesellschaft für Neue Musik 1999. Saarbrücken: PFAU Verlag.Google Scholar
Schulz, Bernd (ed.). 2002. Resonanzen/Resonancen – Aspekte der Klangkunst/Aspects of Sound Art. Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag.Google Scholar
Straebel, Volker. 2004. Der Begriff der Klangkunst als Wissenschaftsgeschichtliches Konstrukt. Lecture at the Symposium Klangraum/Raumklang 2004, Cologne.Google Scholar
Toop, David. 2000 ‘Sonic Boom’. Sonic Boom: the Art of Sound. London: Hayward Gallery Publishing.Google Scholar
Thurmann-Jajes, Anne. 2006. Sound Art. In Anne Thurmann-Jajes, Sabine Breitsameter and Winfried Pauleit (eds.) Sound Art – Zwischen Avantgarde und Popkultur. Cologne: Salon Verlag.Google Scholar
Thurmann-Jajes, Anne, Breitsameter, Sabine, Pauleit, Winfried (eds.). 2006. Sound Art – Zwischen Avantgarde und Popkultur. Cologne: Salon Verlag.Google Scholar
Young, Rob (ed.). 2002. Undercurrents. New York: Continuum/The Wire.Google Scholar