Times Square Strategies and Contingencies of Preserving Sonic Art
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Times Square Strategies and Contingencies of Preserving Sonic Art C h a r l e s e p p l e y The author traces the artistic and institutional complexities of preserving t could not provide long-term support. Liaising with agencies C sonic art. He situates these problems in an analysis of the iconic public like the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and sound installation Times Square (1977–1992; 2002–present), which the Department of Transportation (DOT) allowed Neuhaus was constructed in an abandoned subway ventilation chamber by sonic ABSTRA artist Max Neuhaus (1939–2009). Next, the author describes how it to create innovative public works like Times Square. How- aided a revitalization of the Times Square district but fell into disrepair ever, the lack of permanent institutional support—prior to and was dismantled in 1992. The author then describes a 2002 the work’s acquisition by the Dia Art Foundation (DAF) in reconstruction that incorporated long-term speculative self-preservation 2002—repeatedly threatened its preservation. Constructed strategies. Finally, the author discusses the acquisition of Times Square in an urban center, Times Square is tethered to a site prone by the Dia Art Foundation, highlighting challenges that circumscribe to—perhaps defined by—change. Indeed, Åsa Stjerna argues preserving sonic art. that Times Square is inscribed with “new codes and mean- ings” that reflect environmental changes to an artwork “in- Max Neuhaus (1939–2009) was a leading figure in the fields tended to be permanent” [7]. This article shows how artistic of postwar experimental music and sonic art, specifically in instability informed Times Square from the outset, discusses the formation of sound installation [1]. Unlike a performed original and subsequent preservation strategies and high- composition that organizes sound in linear time, sound in- lights the complications of producing sonic art in public stallation positions sound in continuous nonlinear space space circumscribed by conflicting institutional authorities with no beginning or ending [2]. Neuhaus—a virtuoso per- and ideologies. cussionist who toured with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez and John Cage—investigated artistic sound beyond TimeS Square: music following his departure from the concert hall in 1968 ConstruCting an invisible MonuMent (abandoning a “proscenium situation” that organizes people Public monuments typically have a strong visual and physi- into a fixed hierarchy: composer, performer and audience) cal presence. Whether figurative or abstract, a monument [3]. Neuhaus’s live electroacoustic improvisations, antimusi- represents memories or concepts that relate the structure to cal situations and postmusical sound environments negated its location, community or society [8]. Times Square is made such divisions, articulating a sonic practice that invited of sound and has no obvious visual reference, no particular listeners to “listen in [their] own time” [4]. In 1974—while meaning and no plaque (as seen in Fig. 1). The work oper- planning his iconic Midtown Manhattan installation Times ates similarly to other experiments in monumental sculpture Square (1977–1992; 2002–present)—Neuhaus said: “I’m not of the 1970s (e.g. the architectural interventions of Gordon interested in making music exclusively for musicians or mu- Matta-Clark, colossal icons of Claes Oldenburg, barren steel sically initiated audiences. I am interested in making music plates of Richard Serra or sprawling social sculptures of for people” [5]. Christo and Jeanne-Claude) [9]. Times Square complicates However, Neuhaus often spoke of fighting with the “insti- these boundaries further by defining place with an ephem- tutional beast” [6]. His phrase refers to complications derived eral medium [10]. However, sound is a physical process that from interacting with institutions—artistic, municipal and challenges preconceptions of sculptural materiality. Indeed, corporate—on which he relied to produce artworks but that music critic John Rockwell once described Neuhaus’s instal- Charles Eppley (art historian, curator), Department of Art, 2224 Staller Center lations as the “aural equivalent of a visual-arts earthwork” [11]. for the Arts, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5400, U.S.A. Email: <[email protected]>. In this sense, Times Square is a monument to the emergence of sound as a sculptural medium and an anti- monument that See <www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/lmj/-/27> for supplemental files associated with this issue. memorializes its enduring presence. ©2017 ISAST doi:10.1162/LMJ_a_01003 LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 27, pp. 21–26, 2017 21 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_01003 by guest on 27 September 2021 very special. It is roughly triangular in shape, with a series of tunnels of different lengths leading off one side and [a] small chamber at one end. My preliminary underground survey of the location indicates these chambers have dis- tinctive sound resonances. I find these particular sound qualities extremely interesting [16]. Neuhaus conducted acoustic experiments in the chamber, observing how “each sound inserted into the piece is multi- plied as it circles the loop,” and introduced and manipulated electronic sounds to intensify this acoustic effect: acoustic resonance [17]. Acoustic resonance is a phenomenon whereby a geometri- cal object made from a medium (solid or fluid) amplifies specific natural frequencies when excited by exterior sound or vibration [18]. Every physical material that is able to store energy is resonant once delimited by a geometrical shape (e.g. air in a triangular chamber) and a medium density that de- termines sound wave propagation speed. When Neuhaus’s electronic tones enter the chamber, they pass over hard con- crete surfaces and multiply, amplify and intensify (“circles the loop”), producing an audible rumble at the surface. One hears not simply the sound of oscillators but a combination of tones propagated, amplified and resonated through the chamber. Sound is not amplified on the site but is generated in the site (and is physically, rather than rhetorically, site spe- Fig. 1. Max Neuhaus, Times Square, sound installation at Broadway cific). However, Neuhaus also claimed that his sounds were between 45th and 46th Streets, New York City, 1976. (Photo © Estate of Max Neuhaus) less important than their psychoacoustical and social func- tions: “My focus is not on making sound works which are ex- hibited to people’s ears, but on affecting the way they perceive Times Square is absorbed into its surrounding site, one of a space by adjusting or shifting its sound” [19]. Neuhaus’s the busiest, loudest and most public of spaces in the United States. Its low-pitched droning hum is amplified from a loud- speaker placed in a chamber beneath a nondescript patch of ventilation grates (as seen in Fig. 2) and heard by listeners who walk across its surface. In 1984, Neuhaus described how Times Square “can be walked through and not noticed. The [sonic] threshold . is a crucial factor. I try to find a point . where the [sounds] are at the threshold of being there and not there” [12]. However, the piece is not undetectable. Neuhaus wanted listeners to find his sounds without “making them so obvious that they are forced to find them” [13]. He prompted listeners to engage the site dialectically: Constant electronic drones are contrasted with stilted sounds of traffic, pedestrian banter and industrial noise to enact a dialogue between artistic and nonartistic sound. Neuhaus described Times Square as an “invisible unmarked block of sound” and “an impossibility within its context” [14]. Neuhaus highlighted how the work both affirms and evades material and perceptive boundaries by being present but not seen, heard but not known, underscoring its dualistic physical and psychoacoustical structure. Neuhaus eventually viewed the soundscape—or the preexisting sounds of the lo- cation—as part of the work [15]. However, he was originally interested in the chamber’s unique acoustic space: Fig. 2. Max Neuhaus, Times Square, sound installation at The ventilation chamber itself, where the loudspeakers Broadway between 45th and 46th Streets, New York City, and generating electronics will be located, is acoustically 1976. (Photo © Estate of Max Neuhaus) 22 Eppley, Times Square Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_01003 by guest on 27 September 2021 primary goal was to affect how space is perceived through the Arts grant, but one council member argued it was “not a sound, not to present sound-in-itself (i.e. subjective listening responsible way to spend the public’s money” [28]. Indeed, rather than objective audition). Neuhaus was mocked publicly as a “Schubert of the subways” [29]. The work was completed in September of 1977 (despite TimeS Square, 1977–1992 mounting pressure from the Rockefeller Foundation to ac- Neuhaus completed Times Square in 1977, but the work was count for expenses) [30]. conceived as early as 1973 [20]. He exhausted financial and Despite Neuhaus’s initial success in producing the work, social capital to conceive, design and implement the project Times Square quickly fell into disrepair and was permanently over four years. Although sometimes characterized as a guer- turned off in 1992. The work endured two recurring problems: rilla artwork, Neuhaus received funding from private and The analog oscillators drifted out of tune, and power was fre- federal grants: $300 from the Creative Artists Public Service quently disconnected by construction, subway vibrations or Program, $4,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts weather phenomena [31]. Neuhaus attempted to purchase a and $4,525 from the Rockefeller Foundation [21]. There were direct power line to the chamber but was rebuked by Con also corporate donations: the New York Telephone Com- Edison, which refused to work on city property. Accordingly, pany (NYTC) provided a service truck (seen in Fig. 3) from which Neuhaus worked. The MTA gave explicit, though inconsistent, approval and offered lim- ited support: a $950 stipend and free rental of the abandoned chamber [22].