Histories, Theories and Practices of Sound Art
May 15 – 16 – 17, 2014
Venues: Goldsmiths, University of London, May 15 and 16, 2014; The Courtauld Institute of Art May 17, 2014.
Conference website at: https://ocradst.org/soundartcurating/
Traditionally, the curator has been affiliated to the modern museum as the persona who manages an archive, and arranges and communicates knowledge to an audience, according to fields of expertise (art, archaeology, cultural or natural history etc.). However, in the later part of the 20th century the role of the curator changes – first on the art-scene and later in other more traditional institutions – into a more free-floating, organizational and ’constructive’ activity that allows the curator to create and design new wider relations, interpretations of knowledge modalities of communication and systems of dissemination to the wider public.

This shift is parallel to a changing role of the artist, that from producer becomes manager of its own archives, structures for displays, arrangements and recombinatory experiences that design interactive or analog journeys through sound artworks and soundscapes. Museums and galleries, following the impact of sound artworks in public spaces and media based festivals, become more receptive to aesthetic practices that deny the ‘direct visuality’ of the image and bypass, albeit partially, the need for material and tangible objects. Sound art and its related aesthetic practices re-design ways of seeing, imaging and recalling the visual in a context that is not sensory deprived but sensory alternative.

This is a call for studies into the histories, theories and practices of sound art production and sound art curating – where the creation is to be considered not solely that of a single material but of the entire sound art experience and performative elements.

We solicit and encourage submissions from practitioners and theoreticians on sound art and curating that explore and are linked to issues related to the following areas of interest:

  • Curating Interfaces for Sound + Archives
  • Methodologies of Sound Art Curating
  • Histories of Sound Art Curating
  • Theories of Sound Art Curating
  • Practices and Aesthetics of Sound Art
  • Sound in Performance
  • Sound in Relation to Visuals

Chairs: Lanfranco Aceti, Janis Jefferies, Morten Sondergaard and Julian Stallabrass

With the participation and support of the Sonics research special interest group at Goldsmiths, chaired by Atau Tanaka and Julian Henriques.

Keynotes: to be announced.

250 words abstract submissions. Please send your submissions to: info@ocradst.org

Deadline: March 31, 2014.

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The best conference papers will be selected for a publication – the publisher will be announced.

This conference is part of a series of events on sound art and sound art curating organized and chaired by Lanfranco Aceti and Morten Søndergaard as part of the OCR research project Sound Curating (https://ocradst.org/portfolio/sound-curating/).

Events co-chairs: Thomas Markussen and Bente Larssen.