Sound Art

Sound Art refers to modern and contemporary artworks that foreground sound. Not a coherent movement, this practice has roots in experimental music and kinetic sculpture. While there is no agreement about the first work of sound art, oft-cited precedents include Dada performance and early 20th century musical experiments in pure noise. In the 1950s, the American composer John Cage staged some the most iconic and influential works to extend the practice of music into pure sound. Since the 1970s, artists have increasingly employed electronic or computer-generated noise, sound recordings, or video in their work, and artists as diverse as La Monte Young, Christian Marclay, and even Kraftwerk have blurred the line between music and art.