Sound Art Revisited

The first edition of Sound Art Revisited (published as Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories) served as groundbreaking work toward defining this emerging field, and this fully updated volume significantly expands the story to include current research since the book's initial release. Viewed through a lens of music and art histories rather than philosophy or theory, it covers dozens of artists and works not found in any other book on the subject. Alan Licht, one of the country's leading annalists and practitioners of sonic experimentation, traces the history of this form of art, locating sound art's roots in the spatialized church music of the 16th century, the boundary-pushing work of early 20th-century art movements Italian Futurism and Dada, the pioneering efforts of the American composer John Cage and musique concrète innovator Pierre Schaeffer, as well as the technological developments of radio, sound recording, and the telephone. From there, Sound Art Revisited highlights parallels between early sound art and Land art, the role of sound in Conceptual art, the sound sculpture of Jean Tinguely and Harry Bertoia, the rise of sound art exhibitions and galleries, sound art's relationship to sound studies, and finally looks at the critical cross-pollination that has led to some of the most important and challenging art with and about sound being produced today, including that of Christian Marclay, Haroon Mirza, Susan Philipsz, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, and Janet Cardiff, among many others.