The Anxious Sound Object
The question arises what would constitute an anxious object in music. Sonic
‘photographs’ such as Luc Ferrari’s Presque Rien series present a possible parallel to the
found object (perhaps the most obvious form of anxious object) in visual art. However
these works, when presented in concert or on CD, declare themselves as art by
virtue of the juxtaposition of virtual space onto real space. As we have seen, the
presentation of the virtual space of the recording in a different environment is an
act of transformation, transforming both the recorded space and the listening
space.
Warhol’s soup cans are of course also transformed by their removal from the everyday
environment into the environment of the art gallery, and that is why they are
contemplated as art, however there is a difference. The soup tin in the gallery is not
materially transformed by its removal to the art gallery. It may still contain soup which
may be eaten. If it does not, then it does not announce this fact. It merely happens not
to contain soup. The viewer however is unaware of this. The gallery environment
does not mitigate against the possibility. The recording however is a material
transformation and announces itself through its new context. The soundworld is
inherently incompatible with the performance space as experienced by the other
senses.
Perhaps the most obvious example of an anxious object in music is John Cage’s 4’33”
in which all the sounds heard are in their real – world context, becoming music only
through the will of the composer and the complicity of the audience. The sounds that
occur are transformed by the act of listening and the act of framing. David Revill has
written:
As Noel Carrol observed, “Cage’s noises are not like everyday noises”; they
are samples – exemplifications – of everyday noises “in the way that tailors’
swatches of material are symbols but at the same time physical samples”
(Revill, 1992. p. 156)
Clearly it is the relationship between the natural context in which one might expect to
hear sounds and the performance environment that is of importance here. As Trevor
Wishart has observed:
“imagine a recording of a vocal performance accompanied by piano. Imagine
that a vocal performer uses many types of vocal utterance not normally
associated with the western musical repertory, such as screaming, glossalalia
or erotic articulation of the breath. The presence of the piano in this context
will lead us to interpret these events as part of a musical performance, ...”
(Wishart, 1986. p. 49)
If the context does not suggest a musical performance or the sounds are presented in
such a way as to exclude them from the performance context (e.g. off-stage or from the
audience) an ambiguity will arise of the sort that may be categorised as an anxious
sound object.
I would suggest three sets of circumstances in which this may occur: