Seth Kim-Cohen

No Boomeresque celebration of the "music that defined an era," Rock and Roll vs. Modern Life is instead a deeply critical analysis of rock and roll as a chaotic, caterwauling project to upend the foundational presumptions of postwar values. What we have here is the closest thing yet to a unified field theory of rock and roll. In seminal performances, films, and recordings, Iggy Pop, James Brown, Patti Smith, the Last Poets, and the Sex Pistols disrupt the implicit ontologies of modernism and late-stage capitalism. With its comrades, conceptual art, Black power, and poststructuralism, rock and roll strips back the linoleum surface of modern life to reveal a feral sensibility unwilling to be boxed up for clean consumption.

No Boomeresque celebration of the "music that defined an era," Rock and Roll vs. Modern Life is instead a deeply critical analysis of rock and roll as a chaotic, caterwauling project to upend the foundational presumptions of postwar values. What we have here is the closest thing yet to a unified field theory of rock and roll. In seminal performances, films, and recordings, Iggy Pop, James Brown, Patti Smith, the Last Poets, and the Sex Pistols disrupt the implicit ontologies of modernism and late-stage capitalism. With its comrades, conceptual art, Black power, and poststructuralism, rock and roll strips back the linoleum surface of modern life to reveal a feral sensibility unwilling to be boxed up for clean consumption.

For his first US museum exhibition, Hong Kong-based sound artist Samson Young looks to the idealism presented at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago to explore varying concepts of social progress and utopia through a trilogy of animated music videos. The catalog addresses questions of how people adapt to societal changes that they have little control over. For Young, “progress” as it was defined in the 1933 fair’s subtitle “A Century of Progress” represents a specific variant of aspirational thinking. From cars to shopping malls and houses designed for the future to political change, progressive thinking has had contrasting consequences as it made its impact felt across the globe in the decades that followed. The accompanying catalog acts both as an introduction to Young’s work and a lavishly illustrated document of the exhibition. It features an essay by curator Orianna Cacchione contextualizing Young’s work, an essay by G. Douglas Barrett exploring the tension between modern visions of utopia and the musical version of the contemporary, and an interview between Seth Kim Cohen and Young about the form of the music video and its variations in the exhibitions. Additionally, the catalog also contains full-color video stills of the works, original drawings, and archival materials included in the exhibition.

Denna antologi – Ljudkonst – har som ambition att erbjuda en introduktion till och översikt över delar av ett landskap som utgörs av både konstnärliga soniska praktiker och teoretiska diskurser, vilka sammantagna formar ett fält som kommit att kallas ”ljudkonst”. De fjorton essäer av konstnärer och teoretiker som ingår i Ljudkonst (re)presenterar, skriver antologins redaktörer Åsa Stjerna och Andreas Engström, hur samtalet om ljudkonst har utvecklats och omvandlats i den teoretiska diskussionen under de senaste decennierna. De tecknar konturerna av en historia om begreppets konstruktion och dekonstruktion, och formar en interdisciplinär berättelse som inte desto mindre innebär inkluderanden och exkluderanden. Det är en komplex berättelse om ljudets materialitet, om ljudets ontologi, om dess frigörelse från en inommusikalisk tolkningssfär, om konstarternas diskursiva expansion och öppnande mot samtida konstnärliga och filosofiska strömningar. I Ljudkonst medverkar Helga de la Motte-Haber, David Toop, Douglas Kahn, Volker Straebel, Barbara Barthelmes, Golo Föllmer, Gernot Böhme, Frauke Behrendt, Gascia Ouzounian, Brandon LaBelle, Salomé Voegelin, Seth Kim-Cohen, Christoph Cox och Tara Rodgers. Ljudkonst utgör # 140 i Musikaliska Akademiens skriftserie.

Against Ambience diagnoses - in order to cure - the art world’s recent turn toward ambience. Over the course of three short months - June to September, 2013 - the four most prestigious museums in New York indulged the ambience of sound and light: James Turrell at the Guggenheim, Soundings at MoMA, Robert Irwin at the Whitney, and Janet Cardiff at the Met. In addition, two notable shows at smaller galleries indicate that this is not simply a major-donor movement. Collectively, these shows constitute a proposal about what we wanted from art in 2013. While we’re in the soft embrace of light, the NSA and Facebook are still collecting our data, the money in our bank accounts is still being used to fund who-knows-what without our knowledge or consent, the government we elected is still imprisoning and targeting people with whom we have no beef. We deserve an art that is the equal of our information age. Not one that parrots the age’s self-assertions or modes of dissemination, but an art that is hyper-aware, vigilant, active, engaged, and informed. We are now one hundred years clear of Duchamp’s first readymades. So why should we find ourselves so thoroughly in thrall to ambience? Against Ambience argues for an art that acknowledges its own methods and intentions; its own position in the structures of cultural power and persuasion. Rather than the warm glow of light or the soothing wash of sound, Against Ambience proposes an art that cracks the surface of our prevailing patterns of encounter, initiating productive disruptions and deconstructions.

Against Ambience diagnoses - in order to cure - the art world’s recent turn toward ambience. Over the course of three short months - June to September, 2013 - the four most prestigious museums in New York indulged the ambience of sound and light: James Turrell at the Guggenheim, Soundings at MoMA, Robert Irwin at the Whitney, and Janet Cardiff at the Met. In addition, two notable shows at smaller galleries indicate that this is not simply a major-donor movement. Collectively, these shows constitute a proposal about what we wanted from art in 2013. While we’re in the soft embrace of light, the NSA and Facebook are still collecting our data, the money in our bank accounts is still being used to fund who-knows-what without our knowledge or consent, the government we elected is still imprisoning and targeting people with whom we have no beef. We deserve an art that is the equal of our information age. Not one that parrots the age’s self-assertions or modes of dissemination, but an art that is hyper-aware, vigilant, active, engaged, and informed. We are now one hundred years clear of Duchamp’s first readymades. So why should we find ourselves so thoroughly in thrall to ambience? Against Ambience argues for an art that acknowledges its own methods and intentions; its own position in the structures of cultural power and persuasion. Rather than the warm glow of light or the soothing wash of sound, Against Ambience proposes an art that cracks the surface of our prevailing patterns of encounter, initiating productive disruptions and deconstructions.

"Eyes in Ears: Art in Music / Music in Art since 1948" traces the interactions and mutual influences of art and music over the past sixty years. It presents a narrative of late-Modern/Postmodern artistic practice, connecting familiar events, figures and works to less-familiar precedents and antecedents from within their own fields and from across the aisle. What do Pierre Schaeffer's initial experiments in musique concrete, John Cage's first proposal for a 'silent' piece ("Silent Prayer"), and what many music historians consider to be the first rock and roll song: the Orioles' "It's Too Soon to Know" all have in common? A year of pivotal importance - 1948. "Eyes in Ears: Art in Music / Music in Art since 1948" traces the interactions and mutual influences of art and music over the past sixty years. It presents a narrative of late-Modern/Postmodern artistic practice, connecting familiar events, figures and works to less-familiar precedents and antecedents from within their own fields and from across the aisle. Surprisingly, there is no extant book which covers the confluence of the art and music world. "Eyes in Ears" will both document the ways in which music and the gallery arts have infiltrated each others' domains and will theorize the implications of these incursions. Finally, based on the interactions of art and music over the past sixty years, the book will provide an account of the birth of sound art as a distinct practice.