Sound, Museums, and the Modulation of the Imagination

Abstract

William Whittington discusses how screen-based art provides alternative approaches to sound design that challenge perception and subjectivity through the manipulation of sound hierarchies, idiosyncratic patterns of design, and customized modes of deployment. His focus on sound is warranted by the observation that sound is often the key element holding works together aesthetically and temporally, because it activates the immersive qualities that many artists strive to establish, and, in this way, he provides a counterbalance to the abundance of critical analyses related to the visual aspects of art. Whittington references a variety of works that highlight issues of unity and disjunction, audibility and intelligibility, and synchronization and synthesis in seeking to strip away narrative logic in order to rewrite expectations in regard to image and sound relations.