Contribution to Book
A Critical Phenomenology of Sound Art
The Oxford Handbook of the Phenomenology of Music
(2023)
Abstract
This chapter argues that some sound art can provide bridges, opening dwelling structures for new
relational possibilities. Sound art can connect and transform us, even as it reveals the limits of such
connections and the structures that work to colonize them. Considering the critical qualities of sound
art, the chapter thinks alongside three works by Jules Gimbrone. It then critiques neo-materialist and
postmodern approaches to sound art and explains why a critical phenomenological approach best
clarifes the embodied ideas Gimbrone’s sound art reveals. Finally, the chapter turns a critical ear to
Martin Heidegger to better understand how sound art contributes to dwelling. At stake are different
ontological approaches—different relational ways of being, relational ways of engaging place, world,
and other beings. Sound art can help us engage different relational ways of being; but the move too
often made of collapsing distance—of not respecting place—does not, as xwélméxw (Stó:lō)
musicologist Dylan Robinson points out, accomplish this goal.
Keywords
- sound art,
- critical phenomenology,
- dwelling,
- place,
- Jules Gimbrone,
- Heidegger,
- Dylan Robinson
Disciplines
Publication Date
Summer July 18, 2023
Editor
Jonathan de Souza, Benjamin Steege and Jessica Wiskus
Publisher
Oxford Academic
ISBN
9780197577875
DOI
https://doi-org.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197577844.013.24
Citation Information
Helen A Fielding. "A Critical Phenomenology of Sound Art" OnlineThe Oxford Handbook of the Phenomenology of Music (2023) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/helen_fielding/36/