Listening to Noise and Silence - by Salomé Voegelin (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Listening to Noise and Silence engages with the emerging practice of sound art and the concurrent development of a discourse and theory of sound. In this original and challenging work, Salomé Voegelin immerses the reader in concepts of listening to sound artwork and the everyday acoustic environment, establishing an aesthetics and philosophy of sound and promoting the notion of a sonic sensibility.

A multitude of sound works are discussed, by lesser known contemporary artists and composers (for example Curgenven, Gasson and Federer), historical figures in the field (Artaud, Feldman and Cage), and that of contemporary canonic artists such as Janet Cardiff, Bill Fontana, Bernard Parmegiani, and Merzbow.

Informed by the ideas of Adorno, Merleau-Ponty and others, the book aims to come to a critique of sound art from its soundings rather than in relation to abstracted themes and pre-existing categories. Listening to Noise and Silence broadens the discussion surrounding sound art and opens up the field for others to follow.

Review Quotes

"The examples under discussion range from by-now canonical soundworks...to recent works by a clutch of lesser known artists...Voegelin's critical style is so singular that she avoids cliche in the treatment of all these artists, prising them out of a conversation about music and into a challenging treatise on the art of listening." --The Wire

"The book's arguments are complex and developed with rigour, making a perceptive contribution to an emerging debate. In its favour, the work consistently forces the listener off-track to think critically about just what it is that makes listening so powerful and so elusive." --Will Montgomery, The Wire, August 2010

"Reviewed in the London Review of Books 23 September (UK)" --London Review of Books

"Listening to Noise and Silence will be of interest to a great many people following breakthrough trends within art and philosophy." --Art Monthly

"Salome Voegelin has written an excellent book about sound art, escaping cliché and easy categorizations. She establishes a proper aesthetics and philosophy of sound, with a compelling phenomenological account of noise and silence." --Neural

"In Voegelin's evocative image, noise holds the listener hostage to his or her own listening... Listening to Noise and Silence contains many moments that sound artists and others will find insightful." --Avant Music News

"There cannot be a concluding remark to encompass Listening to Noise and Silence. You might not even completely 'understand' it if you refuse to 'feel' it and 'know' it or if you aim at making ends meet evenly. It will question you, it will confuse you, it will exhilarate you. It will prompt you to reinvent it over and over: in listening, in writing." --Journal of Sonic Studies

About the Author