I found the reading “Defining Sound Art” very interesting because it helped me understand what people consider sound art and the different aspects that can be involved. The authors, Laura Maes and Marc Leman, bring up interesting ideas for what sound art is. For example, it seems that they think that the sound created in sound art is its own thing and should not have to rely on other physical forms. They go on to state that there are thirteen criteria to sound art that are, “based on literature study, analyses of exhibition catalogs, the authors’ experience in organizing sound art and the first author’s artistic practice.” They go on to describe the different conditions that must be met for each criteria to be considered and be given towards some sound art. They then use the criteria and conditions to create a schema that I find very interesting because it helps to map how frequent a certain condition occurs and how many conditions are actually occurring for a criteria. For example, one of the criteria that has its conditions occur the least is the concept criteria which states that the sound of a sound art piece has to be individual and intentional and, not rely or accompany another visual aspect. The conditions are interesting because they are just inverted versions of the previous statement which would lead to the conditions not occurring that frequently.
Additionally, I find it interesting that they had to use thirteen criteria to define sound art. To me this seems like a lot of different criteria and conditions to remember but I can see how a diagram would help with the confusion and help identify more sound art. It also allows us to understand what sound art is and specifically for me that was something that I was concerned about, I was not sure what sound art was and I definitely was not going to be able to identify all these different aspects of sound art. The reading has helped give me an outline for future projects. It also will help me to better understand, analyze and criticize the sound art that we hear in class and that we will end up making.
