1998
Columbia Documents 7/A Conversation Between Arthur Danto and Max Neuhaus E2 July 24, 1998 1
“Sound and Space”
A Conversation Between Arthur Danto and Max Neuhaus
Introduction
This discussion was held at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation on November 12, 1996. It was moderated by Yehuda Safran [IDENTIFY HIM].Initiated from the work of a studio with Steven Holl and Bernard Tschumi at the school, this event was a forum to discuss the question of sound in relation to place in connection with the work of artist Max Neuhaus. Neuhaus’ works have been installed at a number of locations in America. His works exist only in situ, meaning that for many people, they are difficult to experience directly. Because he works solely with sound, the work is not reproducible or recordable. Arthur Danto is best known as a philosopher. Deeply involved in the arts, he has previously written and responded on Max’s work [WHERE].
Max Neuhaus:
I make a large variety of artworks using sound in different forms. One of the largest group of works are in a form called “place.” These have been categorized as part of the plastic arts even though they are immaterial and invisible. The first point to address is why a person who works only with sound, and doesn’t make any visual changes in a given situation, should be considered a sculptor.
Space is perceived as place—how it is seen, the color it is, what shapes it possesses and, at the same time and less obviously, with the ear. The ear’s perception of a place is largely unconscious unless there is particular focus on sound. Just because it’s unconscious to most doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. A classic example is the feeling of complete disorientation when entering anechoic chamber. Every sound made is absorbed immediately. The space seen is believable, but the one perceived with the ear is not. The feeling in this space, one missing only the dimension of sound, is powerful disorientation.
The ear and the eye work as a team. They are codependent. Sculptors dealing with space visually change what the eye sees. By doing this, it changes the work as a whole. I work in the other door of perception, the ear. I change what the ear perceives as the space, and also change it as a whole.
Arthur Danto:
Max’s work is conceptually innovative. This has been a period of remarkable redefinition in the plastic arts. To call them “plastic” is probably better than “visual,” but it’s also a concession— particularly in the idea of sculpture. Josef Beuys called himself a social sculptor. Various other individuals consider themselves sculptors, but are very remote from the everyday tools of hammer and chisel or the direct molding of clay. Sculpture must deal with the definition of space—or definition of particular spaces. It can be extremely plastic in the way Beuys was involved in transformations of society and consciousness.
When Max’s work is encountered, something both avant-garde and magical occurs. It’s abstract and dry to talk about sculpture, but I was immediately taken with the Times Square piece. It was in one of the pedestrian islands few people pay attention to unless they’re buying theater tickets. When Max told me about Times Square [1977-92], it was something I had experience immediately. This work rose as a shaped piece of sound from a grate. It was a Shakespearean product—the kind of work that Shakespeare wrote about in The Tempest when Prospero summoned voices out of air and saw the invisible sounds. The shape belonged to Prospero’s domain and, because it came from underground, it possessed a Caliban-like identity as well.
MN: Working in the plastic arts, the principal platform of presentation is the exhibition. I approach doing a work in two large steps. The first step is coming to an agreement with a specific place—choosing a place and taking it on. This establishes a boundary around what the piece can be. The second step is building the work’s sound. A sound is never built outside a space and then placed there. Once the site has been selected, I go and start making sound in it. The work grows from learning what happens with sound there—learning about the people who use it and experimenting with the construction of sound. Constructing it follows a path. The only important thing for an artist to know in terms of technique is when to stop—realizing when the work is there.
Many of these sound works have physical shapes. Times Square was located on one of the pedestrian islands. It already contained a large triangular grating—ten meters by three meters. It was that grating, and the possibility of using it to build a block of sound that one could walk through—in and out—that was fascinating. Although the island seems like a no man’s land in the middle of the square, thousands of people cross it every day.
One of the revelations that led me from the activities of a solo musician was the desire to work outside the cultural context with people who were not expecting an encounter with an aesthetic experience. As an artist it’s possible to deal with a broad spectrum of people not initiated into cultural rituals. This is done not by simplifying or trying to find a lowest common denominator, but by confronting people with something very special. The aesthetic experience is natural to the human being. The work allows an encounter outside the framework of art and without the preconceptions of art. This enables them to think about it in their own terms and allows them to find it when ready.
When the sound was there it was subtle. In the context of Times Square it was something noticeable or unnoticeable. The first reaction was “Does anyone hear it?” This idea comes from music—if the audience doesn’t pay attention it’s bad, but if they don’t even notice, it’s tragic.
AD: A lot of people found it, but many did not. The last thing people have on their minds when trying to cross Broadway is an aesthetic experience. New Yorkers are characteristically in a hurry, and that’s a very difficult piece of New York real estate to traverse. What was striking was certain people stopped dead in their tracks and others walked through without noticing.
There is an analogy. Carl Andre, the minimalist sculptor, characteristically placed a square metal plate, or groups of plates, on the floor like tiles. From his point of view Andre said he could see a great column of space rising. He made the base for that column of space. Once this was realized, one felt as if one was walking through that column by stepping across it.
MN: No one perceives an artwork until he or she is ready to perceive it. Marketing it doesn’t change the number of people who actually perceive it. The aesthetic experience is unique to the individual. The only way to allow more people to experience an artwork is by making it more accessible and making people less self-conscious about it.
AD: People encountering Times Square felt they were in the presence of something rather remarkable. Some were prepared to sit next to it for a period of time. The work was not something one would listen to like music. It could not be followed that way. It possessed spatial contours so that one could walk through it, but it was more tangible than walking through a column by Carl Andre.
MN: It’s the sound wave touching a very sensitive part of one’s body. With Andre, as soon as one says, “This plate projects a space,” the space is seen and understood. His pieces are very clear because they are constructed by the imagination. With Times Square, everything is not constructed. The piece surrounds one even though it’s intangible.
The ear and the eye perceive the world in completely different terms. Although the eye is geared for space and the ear for time, each looks to the other to confirm their perception of reality. These ideas originated from music but have nothing to do with music. This is why musicians have the hardest time understanding these pieces. They wait for the music to begin and it never does.
Music as an art form exists only in time. These works have no time in that sense. The sounds of these works can be described as continuums—a texture of sound color that is constant. It is changed by altering your frame of mind when entering and leaving.
AD: The project in Chicago [Untitled, 1979-89] was a very dynamic piece. It was encountered in a stairwell in the Museum of Contemporary Art. Since the piece was in a stairwell, it evoked the feeling of wading through a stream. That is to say, as one climbed up or down the stairs, it was either with the current or against the current. It had the structure of a waterfall—like something found at Tivoli with its elaborate fountains. The experience of it was, as a result, very different.
Times Square was, inappropriately perhaps, platonic. It was geometrical and architectural. The installation in Chicago was like a piece of landscape architecture—it had a topography.
MN: Many times I make a sound that’s almost plausible in the space. It fits there. The of plausibility is not accepted when the shift or difference is noticed. One moves into the work itself.
The piece in Chicago consisted of low rumbling sounds that resembled a building’s air system. It was generally plausible, but much more substantial. It was loud moving air because the way air circulated was distorted. It had a topography, but was still plausible enough for some people to insist nothing was there.
AD: There was something more kinesthetic about the Chicago project. It was disorientating. There was a feeling of moving upstream or downstream. Those sensations were not totally aural. This indicates the experience of sound is more complex than the inner calculations of locating noise or encountering a sound as one did in Times Square. The entire body and even one’s sense of stability was engaged. There was a plaque that read, “Untitled by Max Neuhaus.” People would look around for Untitled, but not many were prepared to encounter something in a museum of art—even contemporary art —with that degree of invisibility.
MN: In this case the label made it more effective. In a cultural context the work is more effective as something to be found. Seeing a label in a museum, one expects to see something go with it.
AD: This form of sculpture seems totally contingent upon an electronic technology that previously didn’t exist. Are there any precedents for something like this, outside of Shakespearean comedies?
MN: The technology didn’t exist when I started. It was invented as I went along. Even though the technical possibilities have advanced incredibly, I still have to adapt it to what I do. The electronics are the first means established to shape sound, and alsoColumbia Documents 7/A Conversation Between Arthur Danto and Max Neuhaus E2 July 24, 1998 8 the first means to make a sound without a beginning or an end. They allow sound to be moved beyond an event. The process of making an artwork is universal—beginning on a path and finding the way down. Whether making a painting or a piece of physical sculpture, art communicates spirit. The painting is one kind of carrier that’s been around for a long time. It’s a versatile carrier of spirit. Shaped blocks of stone can also be carriers of spirit. From a very early age my focus has been on sound. It is natural to be the medium I use. When building a sound texture, I work with “sound character.” It’s a part of both the literal and the codified communication of sound. There is an innate sense of “sound character” inherent in spoken language. It’s how a word is said—it's inflection. Superimposed on our verbal language, it tells the listener how to interpret the meaning of words. People speak by shaping the contours of tone and emphasis in speech and by adjusting the sound of different parts of the words—the rise and fall of pitch and loudness and the timbre of our phonemes. The response to these nuances is highly refined. Through minute differences in “sound character,” one is often able to pinpoint the birthplace of a speaker. Part of this language is also used in music as a dimension called sound color. It was introduced with the development of orchestration—the idea that there is inherent musical meaning in the nature of the sound itself—not just in harmony and melody. These works focus on going further—distilling this color essence. This is done by building a sound texture in site-specific works. “Sound character” has a number of continuums of meaning that lie between various points: harsh and smooth, rich and thin or warm and cold. These continuums are superimposed upon each other. Between these points, within the nature of the sound itself, lies an infinite zone of meaning. It’s not literal because it is uncodified. One doesn’t have to learn it. It can be transcultural. This is the carrier of meaning in these sound works. The question of what the work sounds like has always seemed superficial.
AD: In some cases this has been done. A Bell for Sankt Caecilien [1989-91] in Cologne was an evocative piece. It had a specific sound with a specific location and a definite identity.
MN: The piece was in a park next to an old church. The main entrance is bricked up, and the building is currently a historical museum. The facade of the church was an arched entrance filled with rough cement blocks. The work was encountered when walking through the park in front of the church’s facade. One heard a bell, but it wasn’t like a church bell. It was very high and bright, more like a small bell that would ring in a cloister. This sound had the literal meaning of a bell at the point it was first heard. That was the teaser—the entrance of the work. The bell seemed to emanate from the facade itself—the whole facade. Moving toward the facade, what was heard changed. At a certain point in front of the bricked-up doorway, there was a realization it wasn’t a bell at all. Although it started with a bright “ting,” when it began to die away there was another complex structure which grew even louder at some points. It was never the same. Each stroke died away differently. This zone was the work’s place. This is where the sound character was built. Untitled had sounds that could have been construed as an air conditioner—the trick is playing the game of plausibility—making it fit. The sound of Times Square could only be justified as a machine sound because of its context. It was a logical justification in its context. If one heard that sound alone in a room, the idea would not occur. The contradiction was subtle. The idea brought a literal bell sound to the place of the work. This inspired the question, “How could this bell be coming from this facade?”
AD: There was no bell to be seen. One found oneself hearing a bell-like noise, but had no way of explaining it.
MN: Even though it was very high and bright—that was the contradiction. The ear knew this wasn’t right. Facades don’t sound like high bells. Except in music, we are not accustomed to using our ears for an aesthetic experience. In real life, the ear just keeps chugging along—doing its job of telling us where we are and what is happening. This gives me a certain advantage as an artist. I can quietly say, “What about putting this into your perceptual framework?”
AD: How often did it go on?
MN: It went on continuously—twenty-four hours a day.
AD: So one could never walk in the park without hearing it?
MN: Or one could walk through the park every day and never be curious enough to notice it. Question from the audience: Characterize the difference between sound that is encountered and understood materially. For example: walking into the Pantheon and hearing the quality of the sound of footsteps or the rock piece by Nuguchi at the Met—the one that has the water trickling down it. When it is encountered the sound is very important. What’s making the sound materially can be understood, but you spoke of Times Square as though we would imagine a machine is beneath it generating this sound.
MN: The sound isn’t machine-like at all. The context makes you think that. It’s the only logical possibility. This puts the viewer in a state of questioning—it’s not machine-like, but it could only be a machine. It brings him into an inquisitive condition. It’s a technique that takes them to a new locus. Question from the audience: Did you want people to figure out what the sound was—suddenly present a picture of a machine humming beneath? Or did you want to alienate people from that?
MN: I wanted to bring the observer into a new place—not a specific place, but a new perception of place. The pieces are never aggressive. Most people don’t know why it’s there or what it is, but they’re not really concerned about that. Question from the audience: It’s plausible?
MN: It’s plausible and not plausible. The plausible-implausible tension allows me to bring people to that place where they wouldn’t be without it—not being able to resolve the dilemma. The dilemma is not life-shaking. One can walk through it have no response at all. Comment from the audience: When one walks across a wooden floor and it creaks, this is an architectural experience of reality. One might be surprised that it creaks, but one might find it pleasant because one understands something about the way the floor is constructed or the quality of the material.
MN: That fits into our whole literal communication with sound. It’s one of the things I play with by making a sound with varying degrees of plausibility. I’m taking the literal sense and need to find out where you are with your ears, as well as your eyes, and shifting it just a little. This makes something new. Artists working visually do this as well.
AD: If the experience were simply “This is a noise that a machine makes dealing with the subway system,” then it wouldn’t be able to account for the occasional extreme importance attached to that sound by people who make a point of going back and back.
A student at Columbia, Andro Santo, conducted interviews at Times Square. The testimonies were quite interesting. A lot of people never heard it, but some had a deep experience. They went there over and over for a spiritual reassurance. That would be consistent with the idea that it’s like music and not so consistent with the idea that it’s a natural noise. Comment from the audience: I’d like to agree with your interpretation of its slightly supernatural dimension.
MN: Good art should be, shouldn’t it?
AD: There’s one piece that I would love to have experienced. It was in the Bell Art Gallery of Brown University [Untitled, 1983]. It was described as fingers snapping across a space at great velocity. Here’s the analogy. A colleague had a parrot. And, like parrots, it was a tremendous imitator. But this parrot was able to mimic dishes falling on the floor and breaking—a cascade of shattering dishes. It was disconcerting because instead of saying, “Polly want a cracker” or things parrots say, it would open its beak create a cascade of crashing china. I couldn’t imitate it, but the parrot could. I think what knocks me cold about the idea are these incredibly fast finger snaps.
MN: It was a phrase. It was a single click, but it moved.
AD: It could not be imitated. The technology was needed. At the same time, there would have been no temptation. It seems to naturalize it. It was there, and one felt that it belonged there in a certain way.
MN: That was a cultural context—where people were expecting a work. For me the context is where I begin—be it Times Square or a museum. These are the starting points. They are part of the nature of the thing I form.
AD: There was a piece in London by the British sculptor Rachel Whiteread. Before it was torn down, she filled a building with concrete. After it was demolished the inner space was revealed. One couldn’t enter it, but the space was visible. Could what Whiteread did with space be done with sound? Could that space be duplicated to have the same boundaries, or even sharp angles? If a building is demolished, can an acoustical replica be created?
MN: Technically it’s possible though it’s hard to walk on the third floor when the stairway is immaterial. I don’t know whether I could do it as a work. What I found interesting in your description of that idea was the reversal—it was startling. Building a piece is building a new place. I have to start with a real place, because non-space doesn’t exist. What I do with time and the space I make in it, has nothing to do with what the space is. It’s not an interpretation of the space. It’s not a reaction to the space. It’s using a given piece of space and making a place out of it.
AD: In Whiteread’s case it was the ghost of the house.
MN: Exactly. The idea was about that place and an interpretation of it—exposing it.
AD: It would be a nice installation. If you could do it, it could be set up on a campus in a museum, people would feel that they were encountering the acoustical ghost of a British middle-class row house.
MN: When one builds a space with sound, it’s specific to that space. It’s made out of that space. There is no way around it. I don’t mind the fact that it can’t be traveled or exhibited. I am not so sure that the exhibition is the ideal place to encounter art. I’m also happy that it’s not possible to make a retrospective with all these works sitting next to each other. I’m content to travel around in the world and work in different cultures. It’s not important that everyone hear these works. Question from the audience: This work seems context-dependent. Do you have any experimental way of working in your studio?
MN: The only thing I can do in my studio is build tools to work with on site. I use the word “palette” even though I’m not a painter. When building a work, once I’ve established how I attach sound to the space acoustically, the next thing I do in my studio—while the physical part of it is being installed—is begin to set up the things I want to try in that space. I walk into a space without a preconception of what the work’s sound will be. Finding it is a process that usually takes a number of weeks. It gradually forms through working there.
AD: When you did the one in Kassel [TITLE, DATE], you must have done that on site.
MN: Yes. It’s actually three large rooms with two glass walls in each that overlook a park. The rooms are connected in the center by a spiral staircase—three separate spaces, but they are identical. The work consists of three different sounds, one in each space—three layers. There are a number of works that take spaces that are physically and visually identical and transform them into something completely different just by adding a very fine layer of sound.
AD: This was done on site? There was no studio?
MN: That’s the way it always works. I can only build the sound in the place I am building with. You can’t carve stone without the stone. I go there, listen, change, try something, make a decision and go on a little further. Question from the audience: Would you like to see architects thinking more about the natural sounds their environments produce, such as echo, stone or absorption—things that we would learn in acoustics class, or interventions like the ones that you make in your work?
MN: No, I don’t think it’s an area in which the architect should intervene. The field of acoustics is just gaining a solid foothold on reality. For the first time we have the tools to do more than guess about what happens to sound. The best tool for the artist, or the architect, is a pair of ears. Realizing how a space makes one feel. Question from the audience: So the criticism is coming from a very different place than your work is coming from.
MN: Yes. I am fascinated by sound in general—not just as an artist. I spent twelve years off and on absorbed in the practical problems of police-car sounds. I’ve also made public statements about the concept of noise pollution, trying to make it less simplistic. I don’t know much about the process architects go through in making space now, but certainly at the time when amphitheaters were built, for example, there was something else going on in the mind than what the work was going to look like. That dimension has been lost somewhere.
AD: I was thinking of spaces such that, when one enters, one automatically lowers one’s voice.
MN: Just as the physical form of a space has an influence on the way people act in it, its aural form also changes the way people feel. The same degree of possibilities exist aurally—the range is there. For me, walking into most everyday architecture is like an architect walking into a space that isn’t visually made—an aural accident.
AD: This would be like using sounds the way colors are used. One would say “The colors are all right” or, “The colors are pleasing,” but one has to do something with the sound.
MN: If we think of the acoustic of church architecture, I have the intuitive feeling that at one time there was a holistic approach that involved eye and ear in building spaces that is not present anymore.
Q4: When you are building a sound, are you trying to make a listener feel a certain emotion? Has anyone been able to make a classification of reactions to sound?
MN: No, I don’t think it’s ever been done. In a way I hope it never will be. Your question is like asking the painter, “By using a certain shade of red do you intend a certain kind of reaction?” That’s not how artists work. Human reaction to sound is complex. The psychology of sound is a field that is just emerging because the means of preserving sound, examining it and comparing its result in different circumstances are there for the first time. When an architect builds a space with a certain shape, I don’t think he says to himself, “This will make this kind of reaction.” You don’t work to build a space for a specific reactions—you build a space that works in many ways.
YS: I think the main difficulty with your work is that it does not, as it were, lend itself to any comparison. It wants to be sui generis. It wants to be its own genre. That makes it infinitely difficult. Sometimes you dodge the issue by using analogies with painting. Your work isn’t like painting. Paintings are made without a particular place in mind. In the end we fall back on your work in the sense that it has managed to exist in a space entirely of its own, for the moment.
MN: What more could an artist ask?
YS: Exactly. To be incomparable is, after all, the desire of everyone.