Various Artists
The term Incidental Music is commonly used to describe the sounds of environments generated for television, live theater, radio theater, video games, or films and not designed to be paid primary attention to. With this exhibition, we consider the broader meaning of incidental: occurring by chance or without intention or calculation to focus attention on sound art that is not the result of direct human input and also the physical circumstances that generate those sounds.
Non-intention has seemed counterintuitive to music creation until composers of the mid-20th century began considering indeterminate, chance operation and aleatoric music as part of their practice. They explored the potential of unexpected sounds and what was commonly thought of as mere noise with the aim of bringing it into the fold of music to expand what we understand and experience as music.
Prior to relatively new considerations of experimental music and sound art, people popularly considered music to come from nature and from a creative, spiritual, or divine origin only ultimately facilitated by humans. Music generally appealed to people esthetically and achieving beauty with sound was its central aim. Some began to think about where the sense of beauty in sound derives from and what these qualities are. Isaac Newton, for example, drew a correlation between notes in the musical scale, the planets of our solar system, and colors in the visible spectrum in his 1704 text Opticks to connect these seemingly disparate realities. Pythagoras explored the world of inaudible ‘sounds’ with his theory of the Harmony of the Spheres, proposing that the Sun, Moon and planets emit a unique imperceptible hum that nonetheless may have an effect on us. Both explored the idea that there were forces at work in music that are beyond human control. This opened the door to ideas that music could be chance-operated and not necessarily controlled by humans or nature but by chance.
Experiments in various types of non-intentional and non-composed music include Musikalisches Würfelspiel or musical dice game, popularized in the late 18th century by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and again later with the chance music process experiments of Dada artists including Marcel Duchamp’s Erratum Musical compositions 1913 - 1915. In the 1950’s composers such as La Monte Young, John Cage and Werner Meyer-Eppler incorporated chance in their composition as a primary operating procedure of composition. These approaches to music composition and sound art opened the door to broader musical activity that was not planned and utilized chance, unpredictable natural activity, sounds generated by natural or artificial randomness, by data itself and with the advent of recording technology, types of degradation, feedback and phasing for example. Incidental Music showcases sound art and music that tap a variety of unexpected sources unintended, uncontrolled and un-composed.
Deep Listening developed by Pauline Oliveros in the late 1960’s and early 1970s has been used to explore “the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the conscious nature of listening” (footnote: https://www.deeplistening.rpi.edu/deep-listening/) and has contributed to an expansion of sound art’s reception. This exhibition invites deep listening, and encourages us to focus on what we often let go unconsidered.
The Incidental Music exhibition will feature physical artworks that produce sound occurring by chance or without intention or calculation. The sounds produced by the artworks in Incidental Music are generated indirectly / incidentally by data (Alvin Lucier, Music for Solo Performer 1965.), the movements of heavenly bodies (Sounds of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, captured by the Rosetta probe 2014, Sounds of Jupiter, captured by the Voyager probe 1979.), wind (Roman Signer’s Piano, 2010) plant activity (Richard Lowenberg, John Lifton, Jim Wiseman and Tom Zahuranec’s 1967 experiments for the film The Secret Life of Plants, 1979), the movement of museum visitors (Christina Kubisch Cloud (2011/2017), resonating frequencies (David First’s Schumann Resonance installations, Pascal Broccolichi’s Espace Résonné, 2013 and Jonathan Monk’s Study For a Microphone (variation two)), mechanical manipulation of mundane objects (Mungo Thompson’s Coat Check Chimes, 2008 and ), brain activity (Alvin Lucier’s, Music for Solo Performer (amplified brainwaves), 1965 and Peter Coffin’s Music Interpreted by the Brain, 2004), ocean tides (Wave Organ by Peter Richards and George Gonzalez) the activities of a spider (TOMÁS SARACENO: ARACHNID ORCHESTRA 2015) etc. Each of these works invite the audience to engage with sound and the physical structures which create it with the attention we typically reserve for music and conventional instruments, exploring the experience of meaningful sound.
Artists in the exhibition include Roman Signer, Richard Lowenberg, Pascal Broccolichi, John Lifton, Jim Wiseman and Tom Zahuranec, Robin Meier and Ali Momeni, Mungo Thomson, Jules Gimbrone, Lyota Yagi, La Monte Young, Peter Coffin, Christian Marclay, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Peter Richards and George Gonzales, Christina Kubisch, David First, Nao Nishihara, Lary 7, Tomás Saraceno, Gordon Monohan, Jonathan Monk, Mineko Grimmer, Martin Creed, Max Neuhaus, Paul Kos.
This exhibition was initially curated for de Appel, Amsterdam with Marc-Olivier Wahler.
Pascal Broccolichi
Espace Résonné, 2013
A series of acoustic resonators made with blown glass that multiply the phenomenon of resonance frequency, until the entire system creates an "infinite harmonic".
Jules Gimbrone
Sick Building, 2014
Tactile transducer speaker immersed in ballistic gelatin. Contact mics, and condenser mics amplifying sounds inside and outside the gallery. Exhibited at CalARTS in 2014.
La Monte Young
Dream House, 2010
This piece includes sound that resonates with the room and changes with viewers movement [activation] in
the space.
Christian Marclay
Records, 1987-ongoing
Vinyl records.
This floor-based installation of vinyl records does not produce sound, however the records that are affected by people walking on its surfaces have been used by Marclay in audio performances in which the sound of the record’s damaged surface is intentionally integrated in the audio performance.
Peter Richards and George Gonzalez
Wave Organ, 1986
The Exploritotium, San Francisco
The Wave Organ is a unique and iconic sculpture located in San Francisco's Marina District. It is a musical instrument that utilizes the movement of waves and tides to create sounds.
Christina Kubisch
Cloud (2011/2017)
Electrical Cable, electromagnetic induction, headphones, and fourteen channel audio composition.
Electromagnetic waves are translated to sound and run through the cables of “the Cloud”. The movement of the lister affects what they will hear.
Tomás Saraceno
Arachnid Orchestra, 2015.
The audio is produced by a Wolf spider (Lycosidae) recorded on a high-speed camera that may be interpreted as the spider’s drumming or its “jam session”.
Nao Nishihara
My First Honda Civic, 2015(Reinen der Ohren)
50 x 170 x 214 cm
Car hood (silver), aluminium stick, rubber ball, electric motor, belt, wood
Jonathan Monk
Study For a Microphone (variation two), 2014
Microphone and conch sea shell.
The sound that is amplified by the microphone and amplifier is the naturally occuring sound of reverberation
inside the seashell.
Max Neuhaus
Max Neuhaus at Dia: Times Square, 1977
Neuhaus’s Times Square (1977) sits beneath a triangular pedestrian plaza on Broadway between 45th and 46th Streets in New York. A pedestrian walking through this heavily trafficked area can hear, emanating from below a grate in the street, a deep and slightly pulsating droning that changes in pitch, timbre, and tone with shifts in bodily position. Originally installed at this site from 1977 to 1992, the Times Square Street Business Improvement District (BID), and Christine Burgin collaborated with MTA Arts for Transit and Dia Art Foundation to reinstate the project in May of 2002.
Martin Creed
Work No 189, 1998
The metronomes are each set to a slightly different tempo spanning the range of possible settings for the identical devices. Bring spring-driven, the metronomes all eventually stop at different times after about 2 hours of ticking.
Roman Signer
Piano, 2010
Grand Piano, fans, ping pong balls
Richard Lowenberg, John Lifton, Jim Wiseman and Tom Zahuranec
The Secret Life of Plants, 1976
An audio-video-performance sequence for the film The Secret Life of Plants, Paramount Pictures in 1979 in which dancers interact with plants. The bio-signals of the plants and the brainwaves (EEG) and muscular (EMG) signals of the performers are monitored wirelessly to control audio and video synthesizer output/feedback.
Robin Meier and Ali Momeni
Concerto for Mosquito +, 2009
Microphone, speakers, mosquitos, video components.
South Indian Drupa music is played to mosquitos at a volume that is hardly audible to human ears while the Mosquito’s audible responses are amplified.
Mungo Thomson
Coat Check Chimes, 2008
Nickel-plated aluminum and steel, 1200 pieces, dimensions variable
Installation view, 2008 Whitney Biennial Exhibition.
Coathangers were made with various sized metal tubes that produced different pitched sounds as the custom-fabricated “tuned” metal hangers touch one another based on their movement controlled by coat check attendants.
Lyota Yagi
Sound Sphere, 2011
The sphere covered in magnetic tape with existing audio, rotates randomly while a fixed magnetic tape head picks up the audio information that is amplified for audiences to hear.
Peter Coffin
Untitled (Symbiotic Relationship/Dance Party), 2003
Drum, Mexican jumping beans, heating device, amplifier, contact microphones, effects box, chair
and headphones.
This piece includes mexican jumping beans (larva living in a dried bean) that naturally move on the surface of the drum head. Underneath the drum head is a contact microphone that pics up the sound to amplify it. An echo effect is added to the sound.
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
Clinamen, 1997
White porcelain bowls and water-filled basins.
The movement of the bowls is driven entirely by gentle, hidden water currents and the sound is produced when the bowls of various sizes come in contact with one another.
Christina Kubisch
Electrical Walks (2004 - present)
A public walk with special, sensitive wireless headphones by which the acoustic qualities of aboveground and underground electromagnetic fields become amplified and audible.
David First
The Schumann Resonance, 2019
Resonent Frequencies created by earth’s magnetic field,
Composer David First's work with resonant frequencies heavily centers on the Schumann Resonances (the fundamental resonant frequencies of the Earth's electromagnetic field) and brainwave frequencies. He creates immersive just-intonation drones and acoustic phenomena that transpose these global and biological rhythms into the human audio range.
Lary 7 (Larry Lamay)
Spring Tree, 2020
Spring Tree is an amplified sculpture of springs hanging from a freestanding structure. According to the artist, “Spring tree has no control and it has a life of its own.“
Gordon Monohan
Theremin Pendulum, 2007
A flexible theremin antenna swings as a chaotic pendulum, altering the instrument's pitch. Its sound is layered into eight delayed voices and automatically mixed with MAX/MSP, while an LED traces its unpredictable movement through the darkened gallery.
Mineko Grimmer
Dialogue-Bamboo(foreground), 1992
A block of ice containing objects is suspended over a sculpture made of wood and other materials. The ice melting produces the sounds of water dripping and the sound of objects falling.
Peter Coffin
Untitled (Incidental Music), 2005
Exhibited at the Swiss Institute, NYC. Video by Jordan Wolfson.
A real-time sound installation that transforms the everyday typing of gallery staff into music. Custom software converts each keystroke into musical notes, which are played through speakers in the exhibition space. Invisible to visitors, the office computers become instruments, turning behind-the-scenes administrative work into an evolving sound composition.
Paul Kos
The Sound of Ice Melting, 1970
A rare early print of one of Paul Kos’s best-known works. The Sound of Ice Melting amplifies the subtle sound of melting ice through sensitive microphones, transforming an ordinary natural process into a quietly powerful meditation on perception, technology, and time.