HMVK03051U Musikvidenskab: Musik, historiografi, æstetik: Sound Art: Critical Aesthetics in Artistic Practices of the Early 21st Century

Kurset giver viden om og forståelse af hvordan man kan udfolde en musikvidenskabelig problemstilling og arbejde med konkrete problemstillinger af historiografisk og æstetisk art.

I kursusforløbet præsenteres eksempler på undersøgelser med forskellige af metodisk-teoretiske tilgange som giver udgangspunkt for selvstændigt arbejde med problemstillinger indenfor det udbudte kursus’ emneområde.

Sound art as a more narrowly defined artform is about 100 years old. Sound art as a widely recognized artform, present in galleries, exhibitions, festivals and museums did not develop before there were various technological and cultural options for reproducing, analyzing, crafting, and reworking sound as a material substance.

In this course we will explore together the main theoretical and artistic approaches that defined sound art in its inception in the 20th century – and that will determine its further development and critical practice in the 21st century.

We will therefore explore for a start the technologies, the avantgarde aesthetics and the political goals in sound art from the early to late-20th century; and we will then progress into the wider range of contemporary artistic practices in sound from the early 21st century: including for instance building media instruments, postcolonial transformations, intimate encounters, institutional critique, and sonic thinking as forms of sound art.

We will be listening to examples of sound art and we will be discussing their critical aesthetics and their artistic practices.

Study activity:

You contribute to this course with one selected topic: you will discuss and present to us in ca. 15-20 minutes either one aspect of one artistic approach / one artwork – or one aspect of a theoretical approach, applied to one artistic work or workgroup.

It is crucial that you presentation focuses on the critical aspects of both the artistic and the theoretical material – and that you try to point at the problematic, ambivalent, or inspiring points in these artefacts.