Sound Art

Essays and images that map art's new sonic cosmos, illustrated in color throughout.

This milestone volume maps fifty years of artists' engagement with sound. Since the beginning of the new millennium, numerous historical and critical works have established Sound Art as an artistic genre in its own right, with an accepted genealogy that begins with Futurism, Dada, and Fluxus, as well as disciplinary classifications that effectively restrict artistic practice to particular tools and venues. This book, companion volume to a massive 2012-2013 exhibition at ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, goes beyond these established disciplinary divides to chart the evolution and the full potential of sound as a medium of art.

The book begins with an extensive overview by volume editor and ZKM CEO Peter Weibel that considers the history of sound as media art, examining work by visual artists, composers, musicians, and architects alike. Subsequent essays examine sound experiments in antiquity, sonification of art and science, and Internet-based sound art. Experts then survey the global field of sound art research and practice, in essays that describe the past, present, and future of sound art in Germany, Japan, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, and Scandinavia. The texts are accompanied by hundreds of color images drawn from the ZKM exhibition.

Essays by
Dmitry Bulatov, Seth Cluett, Christoph Cox, Ryo Ikeshiro, Caleb Kelly, Brandon LaBelle, Christof Migone, Tony Myatt, Irene Noy, Adam Parkinson, Bernd Schulz, Carsten Seiffarth, Linnea Semmerling, Başak Şenova, Morten Søndergaard, Alexandra Supper, Atau Tanaka, David Toop, Peter Weibel, Dajuin Yao, Siegfried Zielinski