Sound art has long been resistant to its own definition. Emerging from a liminal space between movements of thought and practice in the twentieth century, sound art has often been described in terms of the things that it is understood to have left behind: a space between music, fine art, and performance. The Oxford Handbook of Sound Art surveys the practices, politics, and emerging frameworks of thought that now define this previously amorphous area of study. Throughout the Handbook, artists and thinkers explore the uses of sound in contemporary arts practice. Imbued with global perspectives, chapters are organized in six overarching themes of Space, Time, Things, Fabric, Senses and Relationality. Each theme represents a key area of development in the visual arts and music during the second half of the twentieth century from which sound art emerged. By offering a set of thematic frameworks through which to understand these themes, this Handbook situates constellations of disparate thought and practice into recognized centers of activity.

Sound art has long been resistant to its own definition. Emerging from a liminal space between movements of thought and practice in the twentieth century, sound art has often been described in terms of the things that it is understood to have left behind: a space between music, fine art, and performance. The Oxford Handbook of Sound Art surveys the practices, politics, and emerging frameworks of thought that now define this previously amorphous area of study. Throughout the Handbook, artists and thinkers explore the uses of sound in contemporary arts practice. Imbued with global perspectives, chapters are organized in six overarching themes of Space, Time, Things, Fabric, Senses and Relationality. Each theme represents a key area of development in the visual arts and music during the second half of the twentieth century from which sound art emerged. By offering a set of thematic frameworks through which to understand these themes, this Handbook situates constellations of disparate thought and practice into recognized centers of activity.

Résumé en 4ème de couverture: "This book examines different kinds of analogies, mutual influences, integrations, and collaborations of the audio and the visual in different art forms. The contributions, written by key theoreticians and practitioners, represent state-of-the-art case studies in contemporary art, integrating music, sound, and image with key figure of modern thinking constitute a foundation for the discussion. It thus emphasizes avant-garde and experimental tendencies, while analyzing them in historical, theoretical, and critical frameworks. The book is organized around three core subjects, each of which constitutes one section of the book. The first concentrates on the interaction between seeing and hearing. Examples of classic and digital animation, video art, choreography, and music performance, which are motivated by the issue of eye versus ear perception are examined in this section. The second section explores experimental forms emanating from the expansion of the concepts of music and space to include environmental sounds, vibrating frequencies, language, human habitats, the human body, and more. The reader will find here an analysis of different manifestations of this aesthetic shift in sound art, fine art, contemporary dance, multimedia theatre, and cinema. The last section shows how the new light shed by modernism on the performative aspect of music has led it-together with sound, voice, and text-to become active in new ways in postmodern and contemporary art creation. In addition to examples of real-time performing arts such as music theatre, experimental theatre, and dance, it includes case studies that demonstrate performativity in visual poetry, short film, and cinema. Sittingat the cutting edge of the field of music and visual arts, this book offers a unique, and at times controversial, view of this rapidly envolving area of study. Artists, curators, students, and scholars will find here a panoramic view of discourse in the field, presented by an international roster of scholars and practitioners."

Written by the world's leading scholars and researchers in sound studies, this handbook offers new and engaging perspectives on the significance of sound in its material and cultural forms.

Whether social, cultural, or individual, the act of imagination always derives from a pre-existing context. For example, we can conjure an alien's scream from previously heard wildlife recordings or mentally rehearse a piece of music while waiting for a train. This process is no less true for the role of imagination in sonic events and artifacts. Many existing works on sonic imagination tend to discuss musical imagination through terms like compositional creativity or performance technique. In this two-volume Handbook, contributors shift the focus of imagination away from the visual by addressing the topic of sonic imagination and expanding the field beyond musical compositional creativity and performance technique into other aural arenas where the imagination holds similar power. Topics covered include auditory imagery and the neurology of sonic imagination; aural hallucination and illusion; use of metaphor in the recording studio; the projection of acoustic imagination in architectural design; and the design of sound artifacts for cinema and computer games.

What does it mean to interact with sound? How does interactivity alter our experience as creators and listeners? What does the future hold for interactive musical and sonic experiences? This book answers these questions with newly-commissioned chapters that explore the full range of interactive audio in games, performance, design, and practice.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sound Art explores and delineates what Sound Art is in the 21st century. Sound artworks today embody the contemporary and transcultural trends towards the post-apocalyptic, a wide sensorial spectrum of sonic imaginaries as well as the decolonization and deinstitutionalization around the making of sound. Within the areas of musicology, art history, and, later, sound studies, Sound Art has evolved at least since the 1980s into a turbulant field of academic critique and aesthetic analysis. Summoning artists, researchers, curators, and critics, this volume takes note of and reflects the most recent shifts and drifts in Sound Art--rooted in sonic histories and implying future trajectories.