Beyond music - from noise to art

Sound (Art & Technology)

Lorenz Schwarz
Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG)

Winter Semester 2023/24
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Expanding the boundaries of music

Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring provoked outrage at its 1913 Paris premiere:

• Radical rhythmic complexity and irregular meters
• Dense dissonant harmonies
• Ritual-like orchestration

Is this still music?

— John Cage, “The Future of Music: Credo” (1937), in Silence: Lectures and Writings, p. 4.

Vibration and sound

Sound begins as a vibration, a physical disturbance that travels through an elastic medium (e.g., air) as pressure variations.

Sound

From Latin sonus:

• A distinct auditory impression or tone.
• The distinctive timbre of an instrument, ensemble, or style.
• Adopted into German as a loanword in the 1950s.

Complex relationship between:

• Physical disturbance in a medium and transfer of energy.
• Psychophysical perception and sensory experience of the physical stimuli.

Cross-modal perception

Sound and vision influence each other:

• Bouba/Kiki effect: sound shapes our perception of form
• Audio-visual binding in film (Chion)
• Synaesthesia in sound design
• Embodied cognition: sound as multisensory experience

→ Sound is never perceived in isolation

Sound between natural and cultural sciences

The phenomenon of sound is inherently interdisciplinary, bridging scientific and humanistic approaches.

• Natural sciences: physical description of sound
• Cultural sciences: relation to human perception and practice

Sound as artistic practice

Key developments in 20th century:

• Music expands to include noise (Russolo, Cage)
• Recording separates sound from source (phonograph, tape)
• Listening becomes artistic practice (soundscape, installation)
• Space becomes compositional medium (Neuhaus, Zimoun)

→ Sound art emerges as distinct practice

Historical precursors

Sound as theatrical and ritual element predates recording technology:

• Ceremonial and ritual contexts (ancient practices)
• Theatrical sound effects (Japan's Kagura, European theater)
• Luigi Russolo's Intonarumori (1913): First theorization of noise as art

→ Russolo's manifesto "The Art of Noises" (1913) proposed noise as legitimate musical material

Questions in the study of sound

• How can a history of acoustics be written?
• What role do technological developments play?
• What psychological impact can sound create?
• What "meaning" does a sound have (subjective vs. objective)?
• How is listening culturally coded?

Acoustic Turn

A paradigm shift in how scholars approach sound:

• Cultural practice and social phenomenon
• Mediated and technologically constructed
• Spatial and embodied experience
• Historical and political object

Key contributors: Corbin (1998), Sterne (2003), Smith (1999), Pinch & Bijsterveld (2004), Blesser & Salter (2007), Altman (1992), and Chion (1994).

Historical perspectives on sound aesthetics

• "Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music" (1907) by Ferruccio Busoni
• "The Art of Noises" (1916) by Luigi Russolo
• "La Radia" (1933) by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Pino Masnata

→ Futurism explored elements of what would later become sound art.

Luigi Russolo's Intonarumori, 1913.

Public domain.

Sound, technology, and audio

Sound becomes increasingly produced, synthesized, reproduced, and transmitted through technical media.

→ Sound as a genuinely media-based aesthetic concept

Invention of the phonograph (1877)
by Thomas Edison

Symphony of sound

Walter Ruttmann’s audio montage Weekend (1930) is widely regarded as a groundbreaking work in the evolution of sound collages and audio plays:

• Sound film without pictures: Pioneering work of musique concrète
• Depicting the soundscape of Berlin: urban noise, human voices, and environmental sounds

Musique concrète

Sounds are altered using the medium tape, through techniques such as splicing, looping, reversing, pitch shifting, and layering.

Studer A80, Photo: JacoTen (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Composing with the medium of tape

Working with recorded sound replaced traditional notation and instruments, redefining the relationship between composer, sound, and performance.

Musique concrète and the sound object

Magnetic tape enabled the technical separation of sound and source and introduced new ways of listening and composing.

• Sound object (l’objet sonore): sound as an autonomous material, detached from its source
• Acousmatic listening: focus on the auditory image rather than visual cause

→ Digital technology (1980s onward) democratized these techniques through sampling, sound design, and DAW-based music production.

— John Cage, “Composition as Process,”
in Silence: Lectures and Writings.

Readymade and non-intentional music

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917):

• Everyday object declared "art" by context
• Gallery transforms perception
• Challenges institutional definitions

John Cage's 4'33" (1952):

• Everyday sound declared "music" by framing
• Concert hall transforms listening
• Challenges compositional definitions

Soundscape

Extending Cage's environmental listening, R. Murray Schafer (1933 - 2021) introduced the term soundscape in The Tuning of the World (1977) focusing on the sonic aspects of urban and rural environments.

• Etymology: A neologism modeled after the term landscape.

Acoustic ecology

The study of environmental sound and its interactions with humans, nature, and technology gave rise to a new research discipline at the intersection of science, society, and art.

→ Consciously understanding everyday auditory phenomena

— R. Murray Schafer, “Yes, but Is It Music?” in The New Soundscape: A Handbook for the Modern Music Teacher.

Rethinking soundscape

Schafer's concept has been critiqued:

• Romanticizes "natural" and rural sounds over urban environments
• Treats urban noise as pollution rather than cultural expression

→ Soundscape concept remains influential but requires critical engagement

New listening techniques

Exploring ways of perceiving, analyzing, and interpreting sound within its contextual, cultural, and sensory dimensions.

• Deep listening and sonic awareness (Pauline Oliveros)
• Soundwalk and acoustic ecology (Hildegard Westerkamp)
• Detachment from classical concert spaces
• Inclusion of sounds from non-musical environments

→ Contributing to the emergence of genres such as ambient, muzak, glitch, and noise

Spatial listening

Soundscape involves engagement with spatial aspects:

• Scenic listening
• Spherical listening
• Immersive experience
• Binaural listening

Music outside of a concert hall

In the mid-to-late 1960s, artist Max Neuhaus (1939-2009) developed listening excursions, involving small groups of participants walking through city environments:

• Reframing existing urban noise as a form of artistic expression

Max Neuhaus, Times Square
Photo: Found5dollar, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sound art

Max Neuhaus coined the term sound installation for his unmarked sound pieces installed in stairwells, subway stations, swimming pools, and elevators.

• Defining a place through music
• Site-specific integration of sound into (architectural) spaces

— Max Neuhaus, “Program Notes,” in Max Neuhaus: Inscription, Sound Works Volume I (Ostfildern: Cantz, 1994), p. 34.

Sound installation

Explores the connection between sound, space, and visual experience, where sound interacts with its environment rather than existing only in time.

• Relation between sound and visual aspects
• Interaction between listener, object, and environment
• Sound unfolds through spatial experience rather than temporal sequence

→ The listener becomes part of the work, defining its time through movement and perception.

Sound, space and perception

Sound installations articulate space as an artistic medium, combining architectural, acoustical, and representational dimensions (Sharma, 2023).

• Architectural space: physical and social structure shaping sonic experience
• Acoustical space: perception of volume, reverberation, and localization
• Representational space: cultural or conceptual meanings evoked by sound

→ Sound in installation art produces space, rather than merely occupying it.

Zimoun, 150 prepared dc-motors, 270kg wood, 210m string wire (2015)
Photo © Zimoun, CC BY-SA 3.0

Digital approaches

Ryoji Ikeda (* 1966), Japanese sound artist and electronic composer

Works with data, mathematics, and digital aesthetics to create immersive audiovisual installations exploring extremes of frequency, rhythm, and scale.

Artist residency at CERN (2014-2015): Developed works based on particle physics and cosmology, including micro | macro (2015) commissioned by ZKM.

→ Sound as digital/mathematical phenomenon

Ryoji Ikeda, micro | macro (2015)
Photo © Ryoji Ikeda | Educational fair use

micro | macro at ZKM Karlsruhe (2015)

Site-specific installation commissioned by ZKM, transforming the former munitions factory's 7,000 m² atriums into an immersive audiovisual datascape.

Visualizes scales from quantum particles (micro) to observable universe (macro) through synchronized projections, stroboscopic light, and high-frequency tones—developed during Ikeda's CERN residency.

Video: ZKM Video Documentation

The transformation of sound in the 20th century

Our understanding of sound transformed across the 20th century:

• Recording technology: separated sound from source (phonograph, tape)
• Cage: reframed listening as compositional act (non-intentional music)
• Schafer: politicized the acoustic environment (soundscape, ecology)
• Installation art: sound in architectural space (Neuhaus, Ikeda)
• Sound sculpture: kinetic objects producing sound (Zimoun, van der Heide, DeMarinis)

Works cited

• Altman, Rick. Sound Theory, Sound Practice. Focal Press, 2003.
• Cage, John. Silence: Lectures and Writings. Wesleyan University Press, 1986.
• Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Columbia University Press, 1994.
• Corbin, Alain. Village Bells: Sound and Meaning in the 19th Century French Countryside. Papermac, 1999.
• Emmerson, Simon. Music, Electronic Media and Culture. Ashgate, 2012.
• Flückiger, Barbara. Sound Design: Die Virtuelle Klangwelt des Films. Schüren Verlag GmbH, 2017.

• Kiefer, Peter. Klangräume Der Kunst. Kehrer, 2010.
• Fuller, Richard Buckminster. The music of the new life. Music Educators Journal, vol. 52, No. 6, Jun. - Jul., 1966, pp. 52-68., https://doi.org/10.2307/3390717
• Helmreich, Stefan. Listening against Soundscapes. Anthropology News, vol. 51, no. 9, 2010, pp. 10–10., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-3502.2010.51910.x.
• Kelman, Ari Y. Rethinking the Soundscape. The Senses and Society, vol. 5, no. 2, 2010, pp. 212–234., https://doi.org/10.2752/174589210x12668381452845.
• Morat, Daniel, et al. Handbuch Sound: Geschichte, Begriffe, Ansätze. J.B. Metzler Verlag, 2018.
• Neuhaus, Max. “Program Notes.” Max Neuhaus: Inscription, Sound Works Volume I, Cantz, 1994.

• Pinch, Trevor, and Karin Bijsterveld. “Sound Studies.” Social Studies of Science, vol. 34, no. 5, 2004, pp. 635–648.
• Rath, Richard Cullen. How Early America Sounded. Cornell University Press, 2005.
• Schaeffer, Pierre, et al. Treatise on Musical Objects: An Essay across Disciplines. University of California Press, 2017.
• Schafer, R. Murray. The Tuning of the World. Knopf, 1977.
• Schafer, R. Murray. Ear Cleaning: Notes for an Experimental Music Course. Berandol Music Limited, 1969.
• Small, Christopher. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. University Press of New England, 1998.

• Southworth, Michael. The Sonic Environment of Cities. Environment and Behavior, vol. 1, no. 1, 1969, pp. 49–70., https://doi.org/10.1177/001391656900100104.
• Sterne, Jonathan. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Duke University Press, 2006.
• Weibel, Peter. Sound Art: Sound as a Medium of Art. ZKM/Center for Art and Media ; The MIT Press, 2019.
• Wishart, Trevor, and Simon Emmerson. On Sonic Art. Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996.

Copyright and Licensing

Original content: © 2025 Lorenz Schwarz
Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Attribution required for all reuse.

Includes: text, diagrams, illustrations, photos, videos, and audio.

Third-party materials: Copyright respective owners, educational use.

Contact: lschwarz@hfg-karlsruhe.de

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