Sonic Sculpture and the Performative Impulse

This study considers the performativity of sound-producing sculptures made in the twenty-first century through a cultural history of certain works.

Melissa Warak is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at El Paso, USA.

Introduction: Sound and Performing Sculptures Introduction to Part 1. Socially Engaged Listening: Sound and Identity 1. Nick Cave's Soundsuits: The Clothes Make the Band 2. Kara Walker: Water and History 3. Christine Sun Kim: Engaging the Unhearing Ear Introduction to Part II. Listening to History: The Speaker as Surrogate 4. Susan Philipsz: The Instrument in Absentia and the Music of War 5. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: Sounding Sacred Spaces 6. Luke Fowler: Sound Soup Introduction to Part III. The Body as Sculpture: Performance as Sculpture 7. Ragnar Kjartansson: That Old Sweet Song 8. Phil Collins: The Stage, the Seven Inch, and the Sound Booth 9. Lundahl & Seitl: Curating the Body/Emptying the Gallery Epilogue: A Speaker and a Wall and What Else?