Lecture #1 Clicks and Pops

The board discussion started simple enough with statements from each artist as to their background and own experience in art concerning sound. The panel consisted of Louis Niebuhr, Jean-Paul Perrotte, Robert Morrison, and Tohm Judson and moderated by Brett Van Hoesen. The main focus of the discussion hinged upon each person's specific relation to the term "sound art". Robert Morrison posed an interesting history of his own experience with sound art and its manifestation in the 60s and 70s. His perspective I thought was particularly interesting because Morrison is traditionally involved in sculpting and drawing and had similar views of sound art in its relation to the physicality of sound and potential for sound art to evoke a sense of environment.

Jean-Paul Perrotte brought up a similar notion alongside this statement and highlighted the potentiality for sound are to evoke sensations and experiences that have previously been dominated by the visual-art field. He made specific reference to the typical persons sound repertoire similar to taste, where a sound is associated with a specific feeling or knowledge and this is inherently representational in nature. Tohm Judson and Louis Niebuhr discussed this specific representational quality in reference to sound vs noise vs music. There is a very fine line between all three that is specific to the individual and important in their individual distinctions. The manipulation of these auditory qualities enables the artist to create very dramatic 'sound-scapes'. Jean-Paul Perrotte noted at this point the technicalities to what is commonly termed 'music' and how it is usually comprised of some musical measure, even if that measure is greatly varying. Tohm Judson expressed dissent from this stating that in attempting to define itself 'sound art' needs to be distinct and different from what has been done in some way. He stated that in his personal practice he does not typically slave over conforming to meters so as to not create 'music' but to instead create 'sound art'. I personally believe that much like visual forms of art intentionality is a feature that can define a category. Much like Duchamp's Fountain art can be defined by intentionality due to it's vague, if not absent, defintion criteria.