Short description:

This study considers the performativity of sound-producing sculptures made in the twenty-first century through a cultural history of certain works.

Long description:

This study considers the performativity of sound-producing sculptures made in the twenty-first century through a cultural history of certain works.

A subfield of the sound art medium, sonic sculpture presents new possibilities in sensory engagement with the viewer, creating a mediated experience for eye and ear. Contextualized within three linking nodes of sonic engagement ? sonic sculpture as a socially engaged art, listening to history, and the use of the human body as the material of sonic sculpture itself ? each chapter interrogates one or two works by a contemporary artist. These in-depth analyses of the works serve as lenses to the artists? larger practices and engagements with things that sound. Artists covered include Nick Cave, Kara Walker, Janet Cardiff, George Bures Miller, and Ragnar Kjartansson.

The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, sound studies, musicology, and cultural studies.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Sound and Performing Sculptures  Introduction to Part 1. Socially Engaged Listening: Sound and Identity  1. Nick Cave?s Soundsuits: The Clothes Make the Band  2. Kara Walker: Water and History  3. Christine Sun Kim: Engaging the Unhearing Ear  Introduction to Part II. Listening to History: The Speaker as Surrogate  4. Susan Philipsz: The Instrument in Absentia and the Music of War  5. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: Sounding Sacred Spaces  6. Luke Fowler: Sound Soup  Introduction to Part III. The Body as Sculpture: Performance as Sculpture  7. Ragnar Kjartansson: That Old Sweet Song  8. Phil Collins: The Stage, the Seven Inch, and the Sound Booth  9. Lundahl & Seitl: Curating the Body/Emptying the Gallery  Epilogue: A Speaker and a Wall and What Else?