Ontology: what is there? what exists?
Epistemology: How we go about knowing.

The big questions we were introduced to today were:
– What is sound art? Where does it happen? Who consumes it? Who produces it? How? Where? Why?
– How does it relate to other forms of listening and sound making?

Although these are questions we will never be able to define definitively, we started to think about how we can collectively define “sound art”. The two ideas I resonated with were:
– an expression of a concept through sound. Because of this, unlike music, sound art is not created with the intention of being pleasing to the ears, but rather to allow the listener to grasp the intended emotion and effect of the piece of art.
– sound that engages other senses than the ears; this could link closely to the condition synaesthesia, which for some can be a pleasing experience, and sound art can be a vessel for those without the condition to experience a similar sense.

Thinking on the idea of synaesthesia, I thought about my own experiences of pain synaesthesia, which isn’t pleasant at all. When describing the sensations and how disabling this can be for me sometimes, I’m not often understood. Perhaps, creating a piece of sound art, I will finally be able to communicate this experience. I would like to research into sound creating physical pain, as if this is a possibility, it is something I would like to experiment with.

Sound Works: Peter Vogel, Sound of Shadows.
Books: Rachel Mundy, Animal Musicalities: Birds, Beasts and Evolutionary Listening.