Soundings: A Contemporary Score
At a moment when our consumption of sound is becoming increasingly private with earbuds and headphones, Soundings is a well-timed exhibit that explores “that how we listen determines what we hear.”
16 different sound artists from the U.S. Uruguay, Denmark, England, Scotland, Germany, Australia, Japan, and Taiwan employ various disciplines ranging from visual arts, architecture, performance, philosophy, telecommunications, and music to create new sounds to discover. The artistic expressions are manifested in architectural interventions, ricochets within a gallery, and field recordings from various sites around the world.
The varying sound works can be experienced in the gallery as well as other locations at MoMA. Stephen Vitiello (American, b. 1964) A Bell For Every Minute is on view in MoMA’s sculpture garden. Vitiello used the sounds emitted from 59 different bells around New York such as the United Nations Peace Bell and the New York Stock Exchange bell to create a single harmonious piece. Suzan Philipz’s piece, Study for Strings, is an interpretive orchestral work that used a reconstructed work of a Holocaust survivor where only the viola and cello sounds where extracted, reminding us of the absent instruments and musicians. Sergei Tcherepnin’s (American, b. 1981) piece uses a wooden NYC subway bench that creates a sound when a museumgoer sits on the bench, creating a participatory relationship with the audience.
Soundings: A Contemporary Score will not be a standard experience and in the contemporary setting at the MoMA allow visitors to naturally reflect on how and what we hear and with reflection on how this may effect our everyday lives.
Organized by Barbara London, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, MoMA