In the Blink of an Ear: Toward a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art was the book that I was assigned. For a quick review, I enjoyed it greatly as it was interesting to learn about different ontologies (but mostly just the same one said in different words) of sound art; really trying to understand the ideas put forth and weaving aspects of those ideas into my own understanding of art and sound art was the best part.
What will be on this post is just a transcription of the part that I gave in my group’s presentation.
“In the blink of an Ear toward a non-cochlear sonic art, the title of Seth Kim-Cohen book is supposedly in reference to Marcel Duchamp’s dismissal of modern art being purely visual and his call for an “anti-retinal” approach to painting. Cohen proposes something similar but in the context of sound art. The notion of an “anti-retinal” approach or non-cochlear approach to art is highlighted in Clement Greenberg’s piece “The Situation at the Moment” which was published in 1948. Greenberg talked about how public interest in abstract painting was waning at the time and proposes it was due to the obsession artists had for the visual and the lack of meaning abstract painting had outside of its form. Greenberg argued that art at the time could only survive or stay relevant through advancing the meaning behind the artworks, and Seth Kim-Cohen argues that sound art needs to go through the same process of advancing the subject matter on which we base our sound art around.
When I read this, I agreed with a lot of the points it was making. The form of a sound piece is important but at the end of the day the meaning or topic that underpins a piece is what drives or guides the subjective experience one would have when listening to a sound piece. It also made me think about the tango between abstraction and generalisation that I sure have come up for all of us when making sound art. The more we abstract our art to make it more sonically interesting, the harder it is for people to grasp what’s actually being told through it.
Or at least that I thought before reading how Greenberg depicts the experience of an artwork from its conception to this finality. He breaks this down into 3 sections. Content, subject matter, and form. Content refers to the initial inspiration that motivates an artist to make a piece, being like the first experience of an artwork, but also refers to the impact or impression the piece leaves on the spectator, which is the last experience of an artwork. Content is expressed through the 2 channels, subject matter and form. Subject matter in Greenberg’s framework is what the work is perceived to be about, a subjective interpretation, and the form is how the subject matter is organised and represented, the objective reality.
So, why is this important, why did I talk about it at all. Well, during the first few weeks, we discussed the question “what is sound arts” and I’ve been reflecting on what art is in an age where technology has raised the baseline of quality in art. In the blink of an ear has a fantastic quote from Greenberg in its first real chapter “In One Ear, Out the Other” that kind of answers or underpins what I was thinking out and what I’m going to end on. “The unspecifiability of its ‘content’ is what constitutes art as art.”
What I said was actually slightly different, but basically, my idea for my part was to come at it as if I was teaching something from the book instead of just reviewing the book. In retrospect, was executed poorly and was god awfully boring, but nevertheless, it was interesting when I read it.