Listening to noise and silence: toward a philosophy of sound art

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.

Salome Voegelin

Research Fields

Sound Art
Philosophy and Aesthetics of Sound
Listening
Sonic Memory
Ethics
Audio-Visual Relationship
Digital
Current Research

Salomé Voegelin is an artist and writer who is concerned with the practice and philosophy of sound. Her work has been shown in the UK and Mainland Europe. Most recently her voice work 'Barry Echo' has been included in 'Playing with Words, the Spoken Word in Artistic Practice', Cathy Lane ed., UK, CRiSAP and RGAP, Cornerhouse Publication, 2008. In 2007 she was commissioned to produce a site-specific sound piece for RADAR in Loughborough, UK, and produced a collaborative sound work for the Bregenz Kunstverein, Magazin 4, Austria. She is the curator of Clickanywhere, an online sound exhibition featuring sound work that focuses on the voice.
Salomé is regularly invited to speak at conferences and most recently presented Digital Listening some ideas on digital knowledge and sound at an ARLIS workshop on born-digital archives at UCL in London. She also chaired an international workshop on 'Audio Art on the Radio' at The Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, Switzerland, in November 2009. In July 2008 she gave a talk on Noise at Architectones in Besançon, France and was involved in NOW II a research project into durational work on the radio staged by the University of the Arts Zürich which culminated in a publication entitled Nachtschichten, edition Fink 2008, for which she wrote a chapter.
Voegelin took part in a panel discussion on States of Flux, chaired by Cecilia Wee at Tate Modern. Her published writing includes 'Sonic Memory Material as "Pathetic Trigger"' in 'Organised Sound international peer-reviewed journal, Cambridge University Press April 2006, 'the Anxiety of the Lonely Listener' in '/Seconds', an international peer reviewed on-line journal, issue 05: March 2007, available at 'A Speech for Noise' in 'Earshot' 5, 2007, and most recently 'Völlig Losgelöst', a chapter in 'Autumn Leaves: Sound and the Environment', Angus Carlyle ed., published by Double Entendre in 2007. Her book 'Listening to Noise and Silence: towards a Philosophy of Sound Art' will be published by Continuum Press in May 2010.