Christoph Cox, Sonic Flux: Sound, Art, and Metaphysics, reviewed by Dann Disciglio

Abstract

This book consists of a mostly philosophical effort to make sense of what art theorist Christoph Cox describes as a ‘sonic turn in . . . arts and culture’ (p. 1). Through careful readings of various philosophical concepts (duration, ontology, materialism), artists (for example, Max Neuhaus, Christian Marclary, Alvin Lucier), and thinkers (Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Leibniz), Sonic Flux: Sound, Art, and Metaphysics does not simply offer a summary of various sound artworks as much as it rigorously maps out a philosophy of sound which extends beyond artworks – sound as an ‘immemorial material flow [that] manifests and models the myriad fluxes that constitute the natural world’ (pp. 2–3). For Cox, this ‘sonic flux . . . suggests a way of rethinking the arts in general’ (p. 37) founded upon a non-anthropocentric naturalism, or rather, an anti-humanist metaphysics, which pushes for critical artistic research through material and sensory experimentation and critical theory, something deeply significant for all culture. With an already extensive background in sound and philosophy – Cox is the author of Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation (1999) and the co-editor of Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music (Cox and Warner, 2004) – Sonic Flux has solidified Cox’s role as the definitive voice in the field of sound art.