The exhibition New Only by
Name tended to bring out people's appreciation on sound as a form of art. Not
just showing sound, the works included video installation, experimental art,
and even sculpture piece. The two pieces really had my attentions were Clinton
Sleeper's We Are Singing As Softly As We
Are Able and Robert Morrison's and Jean-Paul Perrotte's Structures in Microtonal Harmony.
Sleeper's piece explored the character of pop music, noise and
history. The work was presented in a short video projecting on the gallery
wall. In this 5-minutes long video,
Sleeper continuously put and threw dirt on a set of guitar and drum instruments.
The sounds, or noise, from dirt hitting on the instruments were playing out via
the stereo. A variety of audio equipment was used such as loop stations,
distortion, acoustic simulator, radio and tape deck to manipulated the sounds. The
piece seemed to explore what defined music and what then defined noise, and
tried to build up subtle relationship between these two elements.
The sculpture installation Structures
in Microtonal Harmony was right next to Sleeper's work. Morrison is aware
of the relationship of sound and space and interested in inserting sound into
sculpture. His collaborator, Jean-Paul Perrotte, is a composer. The eleven
bronze bowls were placed along both walls. On one side, the audiences could interact
and make sounds from the bowls. On the other side, the sculptures were
controlled by Arduino, which played sounds randomly.
This exhibition introduced sound art, explored the connection
between different sound elements, and left a space for the audience to define
this new genre of art. When walking around in the gallery, I was impressed by
these works, especially Structures in
Microtonal Harmony which changed my view on the capacity of sound art. There
were four pieces shown as I remember, but I would really like to see more
amazing sound art
We are Singing as Softly as We are Able by Clinton Sleeper
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