What is sound art? Well, that was the main point of contention during this first session. My initial response to the question was that sound arts was “the unconventional expression of sound,” which refers to how sound arts can be too general of a term when classifying sound art and how the classification of sound art would change as disciplines within it become more mainstream/develop.
At one point in the session, many people in the class got to share how they would define sound art and quite a few of them were interesting to ponder on.
One of these said definitions was “Sound art is music but with fewer boundaries” – I felt like a definition of sound art in comparison to music missed an obvious distinction between the two in how music is mainstream and is the biggest and most popular sound-based field. Another thing I thought about this definition was that sound art may not be less restrictive in comparison because music overall doesn’t actually have many boundaries at all, other than it’s mainly sonic. There are myriad genres of music that are expressions of culture around the world. While it is easy to believe that music is more restrictive than sound art as we are based in the UK where a certain timbre of pop music is prevalent, when genres like noise music exist that is reminiscent of stereotypical sound art, it is hard to make such a clear cut definition when the reality isn’t.
Another definition was “In comparison music, sound art tries less to be “pleasing” to people. It’s more about the concept or idea” – This definition is one I could agree with at this point in time; however, where I think it falls short is in how it’s only a contemporary definition and not one that could be used outside of this “era of sound art”. I would argue that if people were exposed and conditioned to sound art more, it would then become more pleasing to the ear even though the content hasn’t necessarily changed, meaning sound art now could be music in the future as it has become more pleasing to the ear. While the logic I used is quite flawed, it is quite interesting to think about, and I believe a better definition of music compared to sound art could be “Music is usually made to be pleasing to more people or for a certain group of people”. But then that definition has its own potholes. The notation that sound art is more about the concept or idea is actually practically the same for music in general, especially for non-mainstream music.
“Art is made by humas intentionally.” I 100% agree with this statement. Art made without any intention is not art, and should not be seen as art in my eyes. If art could be made un-intentionally, it would be made without meaning, and art without meaning is not art, for art is also the expression of an idea/concept through abstraction in any medium, or at least that was what I was taught. Things can be artistic even if it was not made to be art, because even through mundane things/natural things, emotions and feelings can be imprinted onto people. My problem is when things that are not meaningful in process or form are given meaning to say that they are pieces of art. I need to rewrite and refine this line of reasoning, but I don’t think that something devoid of meaning can be art, nor do I believe that something that was not made to be art can become art by being attributed as such.
This definition also leans into the fact that art cannot be everything, as there would be no reason to classify art as is if it was always art.
If art was everything possible, how would art ever be novel or interesting, original or different? Simply, why would art exist in the first place if it was everything? Everything with or without meaning, made as art and made as not art, made intentionally and by complete accident. Terms and labels in life are made to restrict and differentiate what is and what isn’t the term, and if nothing isn’t art, nothing can be actual art. I won’t lie, all said in this last paragraph was quite cyclical and redundant to mention, but I do think something to take away is that maybe it is better if definitions like these are more exclusive, more elitest, so that we don’t run the risk of these terms losing all meaning and thus miscategorisating different things.