Siege culture: SonicDifference conference

Gail Priest

Discussion of sound and its place in the hierarchy of arts practice frequently takes the position of an artform under siege. Despite or because of the fact that hearing is considered our most constant sense–the first developed in the womb, and that which we can not shut out through physical means–artists who choose to focus on sound as their primary mode of expression spend a lot of time defining and claiming ground, snatching priorities back from a visually focused culture. With the title SonicDifference: Resounding the World it is not surprising that this conference traversed this well trammelled territory, however the resulting discussions were intriguing in the depth and diversity of the positions taken.

Sonic ecology: SonicDifference Conference

Bob Percival

Plato’s Cave is the first place that I am metaphorically taken to by Nigel Helyer, the curator of the Sonic Difference exhibition and convener of this parallel conference. Plato had evoked a very powerful image, a gathering of puppeteers performing in a cave, their audience of chained prisoners with their backs to the fire looking at the shadows on the walls. There has been “an omission in history” however. Sound has not found a place in this allegory, despite the fact that humankind is “equipped to hear the invisible” with an sense organ that places us in the middle of a 360 degree sonic landscape. Helyer is determined to shift this perception that “the eye is the master and the ear is the slave”, as are the artists present at the SonicDifference conference. He proposes that there is a “dual alignment between technology and cultural discourse” that needs to be explored. I am also very relieved to hear that there is no established sonic theoretical discourse and sit back and look forward to being turned on to sound as the “perfect medium for changing my modus operandi in this changing world.”

The science and art synapse

Mike Leggett

With increasingly evil results to all of us, the separation is every day widening between the man of science and the artist.... [the artists] not only do not desire, they imperatively and scornfully refuse, either the force, or the information, which are beyond the scope of the flesh and the senses of humanity.

John Ruskin, 1883

The “Chant’” audio installation on show at the National Gallery of Australia as part of the National Sculpture Award, bathing the space with the Om mantra.