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context
has a rhetorical function, transforming an object into art by selecting it for
aesthetic contemplation. This is an invitation to read the object as part of a
semiotic system and is what Danto has described as the “transfiguration of the
commonplace” (Danto, 1981). The object becomes more than itself by inviting the
viewer to contemplate its symbolic nature. It is both object and a reference to
itself. In effect, by being removed from its original context it has undergone a
transformation.
Just as in visual art transformation emphasises the dialectic between what is represented and the act of representation the transformation of sound in electroacoustic music can serve a rhetorical function inviting an interpretation of the sound. Again the very fact of hearing a sound out of its natural context is a transformation in this sense. The sound of an approaching car on a main road causes one to look round to avoid getting run over. A recording of an approaching car causes one to consider the fact that one would try to avoid being run over. The sound has been transformed into an aesthetic object. Consider however a work such as Janet Cardiff’s recent soundwalk through Whitechapel entitled The Missing Voice (Case Study B). Participants were given headphones and asked to follow a particular route around the neighbourhood of the Whitechapel Library. The headphones carried a binaural recording of the very walk they themselves were taking along with a commentary, some footsteps to pace themselves by and occasional music. In this work it became very hard to distinguish recorded traffic sounds from real ones causing great unease when crossing the streets as recorded cars made one look round anxiously at the empty road or real cars would unexpectedly loom up having been aurally written off as a part of the recording. This is an extreme case of the anxiety raised by objects of extreme realism for which Suzy Gablik has adopted Harold Rosenberg’s term the anxious object:
“The difficulty is to discover why this is art, or even if it is art. Consider, for instance, one of Jasper Johns’s painted bronzes. How do we know if what we are seeing is a sculpture or just an old coffee can with somebody’s paint brushes in it? Can we find the answer to the question by simply looking? Anxious objects often contribute to the confusion of one thing with another. What Johns has done is to ‘reconstruct’ the Savarin coffee can that holds his paint brushes by first casting the real objects in bronze and then painting the cast to look exactly as the objects looked before he cast them. The result is so true to life that a genuine confusion arises as to its identity. By creating a situation of tension and ambiguity, anxious objects raise questions about how we know what we perceive.” (Gablik, 1984. p. 36) This then is a manifestation of the “great realism” predicted by Kandinsky as the second great direction for art in the 20th Century, along with the “great abstraction” discussed in chapter 3 (see Smuda, 1979, pp. 124–140) The anxious object functions by being so ‘realistic’ that it is not immediately obvious whether it is a sign, standing for another object in an artistic language or merely an object. The boundary between art and reality is blurred. When the surrounding reality is that of the art gallery, this effect is perhaps merely implied, but coming across Johns’ can of paint brushes in the artist’s studio would have an |