sight vs. hearing

zhao · Aug 28, 2007

a friend made the observation that the term "communication design" means visual design, while human communication itself arguably has more to do with audio. also in the education of children, looking is focused on as a means for knowledge to enter the brain, while hearing is often ignored or simply taken for granted.

other sound-artists I've talked to have sometimes complained that sound and music are not something the public and the (art) establishment take nearly as seriously as visual art. music is entertainment for the most part, while "art" is deemed a more profound, significant, and indeed almost religious, experience.

and it's true, only in recent years have sound been *kind of* taken seriously, with the popularity of artists like Christian Marclay. while famous observations such as "sculture is more suited for the medium of sound, because you can perceive 3 dimensions simultaneously; and with an object you have to walk around it" (who said that again?) have been uttered many years ago. so in this light perhaps the concerns of something like cubism can be addressed much easier with sound rather than collage or sculpture.

would you agree that in general our societies and cultures seem to (unjustly, arbitrarily) privilege the eyes over the ears? and if you do, where do you think this prejudice comes from?

my knowledge of western philosophy is limited, but i vaguely think this has something to do with the enlightenment and the materialism which followed -- sight would seem to be a more concrete measurement of the physical universe - after all seeing is believing, and sound is just so abstract, intangible, and ephemeral.

any of you smarties out there care to elaborate?

gek-opel · Aug 28, 2007

zhao said:
a friend made the observation that the term "communication design" means visual design, while human communication itself arguably has more to do audio. also in the education of children, looking is focused on as a means for knowledge to enter the brain, while hearing is often ignored.

other sound-artists I've talked to have sometimes complained that sound and music are not something the public and the (art) establishment, take nearly as seriously as visual art. music is entertainment for the most part, while "art" is deemed a more profound, significant, and indeed almost religious, experience.

and it's true, only in recent years have sound been *kind of* taken seriously, with the popularity of artists like Christian Marclay. while famous observations such as "sculture is more suited for the medium of sound, because you can perceive 3 dimensions simultaneously; and with an object you have to walk around it" (who said that again?) have been uttered many years ago. so in this light perhaps the concerns of something like cubism can be easier realized with sound rather than collage or sculpture.

would you agree that in general our societies and cultures seem to (unjustly, arbituarily) privilege the eyes over the ears? and if you do, where do you think this prejudice comes from?

my knowledge of western philosophy is limited, but i vaguely think this has something to do with the enlightenment and the materialism which followed -- sight would seem to be a more concrete measurement of the physical universe - after all seeing is believing, and sound is just so abstract, intangible, and ephemeral.

any of you smarties out there care to elaborate?

Doesn't the problem with sound art from a populism point of view also come in that unlike an avant-garde work of visual art you can't just look at it and go "oh yeh" - tick the box and move on... that it occupies space in time and that only through time can its true form be perceived. As such its "difficulty" is more oppressive, its abstraction more domineering. This is why highly abstract or conceptual visual art is still relatively popular I think: its easy to take in (although only on an extremely superficial level perhaps).

I'd be interested in more explanation as to the 3D in sound aspect... presumably this isn't just referring to the illusion of space created in stereo or multi-speaker works- presumably you mean conceptually something like audio-cubism would be more effective than constraining such an abstract idea to a limited 2D canvas--- but then again some of the best art comes from the imposition of strict limitations, and it could therefore be argued that it is in straining at the limitations of the two dimensional canvas that cubism gains much of its power and ingenuity- and that the limitless potential of sound mere vibrations in the air is too free. An interesting point is also to compare the idea of representationalism in visual art to music-- there is surely no sure analogue- even the most basic folk or pop song doesn't actually represent anything, or if it does it is attempting to convey something which is already as abstracted as an emotion...

UFO over easy · Aug 28, 2007

zhao said:
and it's true, only in recent years have sound been *kind of* taken seriously

I don't agree at all. What about classical music?

if you don't think it's generally regarded as an artform I don't know what is - how else do you explain all the arts funding that gets chucked at it?

like gek, I think you can draw a comparison between the difference between the general publics relationship with 'difficult' modern art and say, a wonderful landscape, with the difference between peoples ideas of audio art and more easily appreciated classical music

gek-opel · Aug 28, 2007

I think sound art is a totally different beast: its sculpture in sound rather than art-music (ie: the classical tradition, although it kind of has a lot of similarities with 20thC avant classical stuff of course).

gek-opel · Aug 28, 2007

UFO over easy said:
like gek, I think you can draw a comparison between the difference between the general publics relationship with 'difficult' modern art and say, a wonderful landscape, with the difference between peoples ideas of audio art and more easily appreciated classical music

Ah but I was looking just at the cutting edge end:the interesting bit is why the most abstract of visual art is much more acceptable and popular than the most abstract stuff in sound.

turtles · Aug 29, 2007

zhao said:
would you agree that in general our societies and cultures seem to (unjustly, arbituarily) privilege the eyes over the ears? and if you do, where do you think this prejudice comes from?

Well my two-minute search for a decent reference failed, but if we're talking just generally about sight versus hearing, it's well known that humans rely far more on vision for information about the world than sound. Certainly the size of the visual cortex is waaaay bigger in comparison to the regions of the brain that deal with any other sense. But this is really because most of our brain is just involved in the extremely complex task of making us move about through the world, recognizing and identifying objects, finding food to eat, avoiding steep cliffs and the like. Humans are vision-dependent animals, so you can't really claim that, in general, societies "unjustly" privilege the eyes over the ears, because it's biologically built in to us at a very basic level.

That said, it does become quite a different story when we start talking about art, or communication between people, or communicating abstract information. But still, one of the arguments I have heard for "communication design" (I think this is related to what's called "Information Visualization" in CS), is that the human visual system is already pretty much the most complex and impressive piece of hardware in the human brain and we would be foolish not to try and leverage it's considerable processing power to try and communicate/visualize abstract information. So one answer for you, zhao, is is simply a matter of bandwidth: you can process far more information far quicker with vision than with any other sense.

Now when it comes to what type of information individual senses are best suited for processing, perhaps there you can make some more interesting claims. I think your right, zhao, to say that human language is more naturally associated with audition, but at the same time they are clearly not one and the same, and I don't think any clear description of how language is processed in the brain has been put forward yet anyway.

But I guess my main point is I really don't think there is a prejudice towards vision, since there's actually a bunch of really good reasons to focus on it as opposed to other modalities. I mean, why do you people keep going on about sound art, while completely neglecting the touch- or smell-based art scenes!!

dHarry · Aug 29, 2007

turtles said:
smell-based art scenes!!

I'd broadly concur with Turtles; it's pretty obvious that sight can process multiple things very quickly and (almost) simultaneously - e.g. think of driving, where your eyes-brain can calculate oncoming car speeds, watch the speedometer, check the sky for weather, enjoy the landscape, look at the radio display, look for cigarettes on the dash, and all the while scanning the road, signs and rear-view mirrors for crucial life-or-death data for the feet and hands to drive the car by... The ears-brain get much more easily confused with multiple inputs (just try to listen to two people speaking at once).

But music as art has always been hugely important to our admittedly ocular-centric biology and societies, if not quite at the level of abstraction that Zhao mentions. It's arguable that classical concert music and national anthems have been crucial up until recent times to the concepts of society and nationality - right up to its use in (- Nazi Germany alert, and only 5 posts in! -) the Nuremberg rallies etc. in fomenting nationalistic fervour.

Maybe music-making goes back further than cave painting? Surely it was more natural and/or easy to sing and bang sticks off rocks than develop a visual artistic sensibility (even basic 3D effects like foreshortening, vanishing points etc on a 2D plane weren't discovered until a few hundred years ago, though maybe these would be roughly analogous to sophisticated harmony etc in music...).

I would guess that any sense of human community is scarcely imaginable without a musical component as a social bonding function, whether Italian opera, traditional/folk music, western Classical music, Christian hymns, Victorian sentimental ballads, dubstep(!) etc - all of these have indeed functioned as "profound, significant, and indeed almost religious, experience" as Zhao describes visual art contra audio art.

Admittedly what you're talking about Zhao - abstract sound art as audio sculpture - hasn't really ever captured a general public imagination or interest since the gradual wane of composed music over the past 100 years. But then, neither has art film (I'm thinking of Snow, Brakhage etc rather than more regular art-house movies, which are really often not fundamentally dissimilar to mainstream cinema, just slightly more pretentious/decadent/non-linear/etc). And arguably as Gek points out the main reason abstract visual art has to some extent is because it's easy to just look at once in a gallery, and isn't time-dependent like music or film.

There's also the "ignorant" position that Zhao started another thread about - "that's just noise", which might be justified in many instances - just because some student with a laptop can make some glitchy noise doesn't make her/him an artist!!

UFO over easy · Aug 29, 2007

gek-opel said:
I think sound art is a totally different beast: its sculpture in sound rather than art-music (ie: the classical tradition, although it kind of has a lot of similarities with 20thC avant classical stuff of course).

well, exactly - avant garde classical composers have been talking about 'sculpting' sound for decades. I think there's a very direct link between the two forms.

zhao · Aug 29, 2007

gek-opel said:
Doesn't the problem with sound art from a populism point of view also come in that unlike an avant-garde work of visual art you can't just look at it and go "oh yeh" - tick the box and move on... that it occupies space in time and that only through time can its true form be perceived. As such its "difficulty" is more oppressive, its abstraction more domineering. This is why highly abstract or conceptual visual art is still relatively popular I think: its easy to take in (although only on an extremely superficial level perhaps).

certainly this can be construed as a reason, but if sound takes more time to take in, at the same time it can also be much more immediate/direct, physical, and visceral, than visual art. sound can grab you instantly, and not let go. it is less ignorable than some impenetrable object sitting in the gallery - people at art openings spend most of their time chattering, and the nature of visual art allows them to do that -- not the case with sound. so maybe it is less functional in a social sense.

gek-opel said:
I'd be interested in more explanation as to the 3D in sound aspect... presumably this isn't just referring to the illusion of space created in stereo or multi-speaker works- presumably you mean conceptually something like audio-cubism would be more effective than constraining such an abstract idea to a limited 2D canvas--- but then again some of the best art comes from the imposition of strict limitations, and it could therefore be argued that it is in straining at the limitations of the two dimensional canvas that cubism gains much of its power and ingenuity- and that the limitless potential of sound mere vibrations in the air is too free. .

yes i mean sound is naturally perceived in 3D space - it is all around you, so that things like distance, background/foreground, are all inherently a part of the experience, without having to resort to the "illusionsim" of say, painting. good points on the tug and pull of concept and formal restrictions.

gek-opel said:
An interesting point is also to compare the idea of representationalism in visual art to music-- there is surely no sure analogue- even the most basic folk or pop song doesn't actually represent anything, or if it does it is attempting to convey something which is already as abstracted as an emotion...

as for representation, certainly music can be that. tribal drum beats arguably represent a number of things from the hunt to the sexual act. ancient music everywhere can be said to represent a sense of loss and longing. and certainly if there are lyrics involved, i.e. a narrative, music becomes a direct "representation" of life experiences. and certainly things like field recording surely are representational...

so while these are all good points, I'm not sure they completely explain the privileging of visual over aural.

Mr. Tea · Aug 29, 2007

gek-opel said:
Ah but I was looking just at the cutting edge end:the interesting bit is why the most abstract of visual art is much more acceptable and popular than the most abstract stuff in sound.

Is this really true, though? Plenty of people* are prefectly happy listening to compleley abstract dance music ('abstract' in the sense of not involving vocals, anything remotely recognisable as an 'instrument' and, quite often, little to nothing that could be called a melody) but take one look at most kinds of conceptual art and think "what a load of old bollocks".

*including, much of the time, me

zhao · Aug 29, 2007

UFO over easy said:
I don't agree at all. What about classical music?

if you don't think it's generally regarded as an artform I don't know what is - how else do you explain all the arts funding that gets chucked at it?

like gek, I think you can draw a comparison between the difference between the general publics relationship with 'difficult' modern art and say, a wonderful landscape, with the difference between peoples ideas of audio art and more easily appreciated classical music

classical music used to be pop music in the western world, composers were pop stars; and it wasn't until roughly 100 years ago that it was overtaken by jazz and blues as the dominant popular form (of "entertainment").

avant garde classical music and all kinds of "experimental music" certainly is taken seriously today, but by a very, very small group of people (esoteric, I believe Sickboy called my taste for improvised music), compared to art.

from where I'm standing if you don't think visual art is regarded as more important, a higher sphere of experience, a more significant part of culture, compared to sound and music in our societies you are in denial.

if it is, why are there no big glossy magazines which cost 12 USD sitting on the shelves of any news-stand all over the world called "Sound Forum", "Sound in America", "New Sound Examiner", etc., etc.? sure there are loads of music magazines, but it is considered entertainment, and not to be confused with that serious pursuit called Art.

what is a better sign of prestige, sophistication, and worldly wisdom, worthy of everyone you know talking about, a David Hockney hanging on your wall, or the latest Gerard Grisey CD?

in fact, you don't even know who Gerard Grisey is do you? while David Hockney is a house hold name. (Grisey is one of the most important composers of the last 20 years, yet about 5% of his work is commercially available outside of his home country)

when you meet friends on saturday evening, is it at the premiere of an avant garde symphony or at an art opening?

as far as fundting is concerned, I'm certain that fundting for Art dwarfs funding for music programs. would be interesting to see some figures though. also keep in mind that Art is BIG business, an industry and economy all in its own - hence the phrase "art world". when was the last time you overheard a conversation at a cocktail party about the "sound world"? (pop music industry not appicable here - that is more on the same level of movies)

i can go on and on but you catch my drift.

zhao · Aug 29, 2007

Mr. Tea said:
Is this really true, though? Plenty of people* are prefectly happy listening to compleley abstract dance music ('abstract' in the sense of not involving vocals, anything remotely recognisable as an 'instrument' and, quite often, little to nothing that could be called a melody) but take one look at most kinds of conceptual art and think "what a load of old bollocks".

no T. dance music, however minimal or devoid of melody, is not really comparable to conceptual art. it is a popular form with more in common with a visual practice like design - it is functional and everywhere.

what is comparable to conceptual art is conceptual music, which is to say, "art music" or "sound art". and conceptual visual work is no doubt much more accepted, widely distributed, and recognized than its equivalent in sound.

Mr. Tea · Aug 29, 2007

zhao said:
no T. .

Well that told me!

OK, I take your point that conceptual art isn't really equivalent to dance music, but (much) dance music is nonetheless more conceptual than, say, rock or instrumental pop* music. And I'd say more people will hear, say, one of Aphex Twin's more 'challenging' tracks and say "This is good music" than would look at a Rothko or a Klein and say "This is good art".

Well, maybe. That's my hunch, anyway.

*played on instruments, not lacking in vocals

zhao · Aug 29, 2007

Mr. Tea said:
but (much) dance music is nonetheless more conceptual than, say, rock or instrumental pop* music.

that's like saying a Karim Rashid chair is more conceptual than a vintage victorian chair... which may or may not be true.

zhao · Aug 29, 2007

turtles said:
the size of the visual cortex is waaaay bigger in comparison to the regions of the brain that deal with any other sense. ... So one answer for you, zhao, is is simply a matter of bandwidth: you can process far more information far quicker with vision.... ... I really don't think there is a prejudice towards vision, since there's actually a bunch of really good reasons to focus on it as opposed to other modalities.

good points turtles, from biological perspective. but culturally, the matter may become more complex. for since the greek times (I'm probably embarrassing myself with my historical inaccuracies) it has been posited over and over that music is the ultimate creative expression, the ultimate "art". and i tend to agree -- it can be more intellectually challenging in terms of formal construction, making use of mathematical systems and structures, than visual art, and also much more immediate, immediately emotional, visceral, physical, etc. it embodies 4 dimensions instead of 2 or 3...

gek-opel · Aug 29, 2007

Mr. Tea said:
Is this really true, though? Plenty of people* are prefectly happy listening to compleley abstract dance music ('abstract' in the sense of not involving vocals, anything remotely recognisable as an 'instrument' and, quite often, little to nothing that could be called a melody) but take one look at most kinds of conceptual art and think "what a load of old bollocks".

*including, much of the time, me

Sound Art or associated genres like lower case improv and avant classical are totally different to dance music tho! Even abstract-ish dance music has a functionalism. Aphex Twin is melodic as fuck for the most part, as sugary sweet as a ring tone...

There is a certain amount of boredom involved in listening to this kind of music, as well as some moments of staggering beauty. But the boredom is almost a positive quality in a world full of entertainment- almost part of the point. I understand tho that selling people on oppressive boring art is quite hard.

borderpolice · Aug 29, 2007

zhao said:
(Grisey is one of the most important composers of the last 20 years

In what sense is Grisey important?

UFO over easy · Aug 29, 2007

zhao said:
classical music used to be pop music in the western world, composers were pop stars

what utter nonsense. do some reading boss. besides which, if being 'popular' is any sort of indicator of lack of artistic worth, then why do you even care that -

zhao said:
visual art is regarded as more important, a higher sphere of experience, a more significant part of culture, compared to sound and music

and bemoan the fact that

zhao said:
there no big glossy magazines which cost 12 USD sitting on the shelves of any news-stand all over the world called "Sound Forum", "Sound in America", "New Sound Examiner", etc., etc.?

zhao said:
what is a better sign of prestige, sophistication, and worldly wisdom, worthy of everyone you know talking about, a David Hockney hanging on your wall, or the latest Gerard Grisey CD?

who gives a shit? honestly? fuck prestige, and fuck the endless, pointless, shallow pursuit of sophistication.

zhao said:
when you meet friends on saturday evening, is it at the premiere of an avant garde symphony or at an art opening?

what difference does it make? levels of popularity do not impact the definition of art. anthony gormley's Blind Light was massively popular recently - it's art. I'm sure you could list hundreds of unknown sound artists I've never heard of, because you're obviously so sophisticated - I'm sure that's all art too. And what? If Gerard Grisey hit the top of the charts tomorrow with his latest CD, it would still be art. Why does any of this matter? It's simply not relevant.

This post is actually a perfect example of one of my pet hates - people who use terms like "important," and "sophisticated," with reference to art as if their own conception of those terms is universally recognised.

zhao · Aug 29, 2007

borderpolice said:
In what sense is Grisey important?

all of this is arguable of course. but a very good argument can be made that the likes of Grisey, including Murail, Dumitrescu, and others in the Spectral school, are the most important contemporary composers from 1970 onward. they carry on what the likes of Ligeti, Stockhousen, Xenakis, and Scelsi started early/mid last century. their orchestral and electro-acoustic work, and those in the "post spectral" (whatever that means) school, for me and many others, is the most exciting thing happening, and the most innovative, challenging, and rewarding development in recent decades.

it is difficult not to fall back to a modernist model of progress and innovation when it comes to this; and i do think it applies in this case: if western culture is preoccupied with the new, then here it is, a composition method having to do with analysis of the physical properties of sound waves, producing nothing less than mind blowing and endlessly enjoyable results.

and the bulk of their recordings are not commercially available in the United States. no one gives a shit. (least of all our buddy UFO here)

zhao · Aug 29, 2007

UFO over easy said:
what utter nonsense. do some reading boss.

no it is not nonsense. many composers WERE pop stars. they filled concert halls, was the talk of the town, seen at the most glamorous parties - if the tabloids existed then some of them would be on the cover.

could only find this blurb just now:

Musicians who could dazzle and amaze their audiences by their virtuosity became the first musical superstars. The two most famous nineteenth-century examples were the violinist Nicolò Paganini (1782–1840) and the pianist Franz Liszt (1811–1886). Both dazzled audiences throughout Europe with their performances, elevating the status of the musician from servant to demi-god. Their fame grew throughout Europe and their likenesses would be recorded in a variety of visual arts.

main point being that classical music served a different function back then - it was entertainment, it was exciting, and the stuff of gossip. the opera Carmen by Bizet was considered lewd and shocking at the time, caused riots; maybe the equivalent of a borderline X-rated movie shown in mainstream theaters now.

my point is that the function of art forms change over time. another example: jazz was DANCE MUSIC back in the beginning of 20th. and people Raved 'Till Dawn to Duke Ellington.

UFO over easy said:
if being 'popular' is any sort of indicator of lack of artistic worth,

who the fuck said that???!!! "utter nonsense" is very much applicable here.

UFO over easy said:
who gives a shit? honestly? fuck prestige, and fuck the endless, pointless, shallow pursuit of sophistication.

This post is actually a perfect example of one of my pet hates - people who use terms like "important," and "sophisticated," with reference to art as if their own conception of those terms is universally recognised.

i think you are misunderstanding my posts. (which incidentally are stirring up all sorts of indignant feelings toward elitism, etc.)

my question is why is visual art elevated to such pedestals of importance, and regarded as signs of prestige and sophistication in our culture, and not nearly as much, music.

to which all you can say is "who gives a shit" ? why are you posting in this thread if you don't "give a shit"?

I'm not the enemy who is assuming the position of arbiter of taste or quality. I am merely making observations and asking questions about why things are the way they are.

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