Description

Short description: How do we think of aesthetic judgment with regard to sound art, including under that term work going all the way back to the musique concrete of the 1950s, through electro-acoustic music of the ’60s and ’70s, and up to work that’s being done today? Long description: How do we think of aesthetic judgment with regard to sound art, including under that term work going all the way back to the musique concrete of the 1950s, through electro-acoustic music of the ’60s and ’70s, and up to work that's being done today? Traditional aesthetic theories are often ill-suited to deal easily with music because they often privilege either visuality or symbolic reference, neither of which is proper to audition. Add to that the challenges of coming to terms with artworks that either greatly expand the definition of the musical, or jettison any claims of being music at all, and the difficulty involved in making use of such theories to judge the quality of these sorts of works becomes even more apparent. This lecture will explore what should be expected from an aesthetic theory that can deal with this kind of art.