THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LEARNING TO LISTEN: KNOWLEDGE OF VALUE IN AUDITORY CULTURE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY BY WHITNEY DEANNE JOHNSON CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2018 For Maryanne Amacher ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures vi List of Tables vii Abstract viii I. Learning to Listen: Knowledge of Value in Auditory Culture 1 I.1.0 Sociology of Sound 1 I.2.0 The Assemblage of Auditory Culture 5 I.3.0 Methods 11 I.4.0 Learning to Listen 13 I.4.1 Knowing Value: Rhizomatic Assemblages 15 I.4.2 Locating Sound: Boundary Work 16 I.4.3 Inscribing Sound: Textual Value Devices 18 I.4.4 Hearing Value: Embodied Perception 20 I.5.0 Representing Auditory Culture 21 II. Knowing Value: Instability and Fluidity in Aesthetic Assemblages 23 II.1.0 From Fields to Rhizomes 23 II.2.0 Models of Cultural-Economic Value 25 II.2.1 Market Models 29 II.2.2 Differentiation Models 34 II.2.3 Field Models 41 II.3.0 Knowledge in Fields 50 II.3.1 Boundaries of Disciplines 51 II.3.2 Hierarchies of Value 59 II.3.3 Stability of Objects 62 II.4.0 Rhizomatic Assemblages and Economic Agencements 66 III. Locating Sound: Organizational and Semantic Boundary Work 72 III.1.0 Definitions at Disciplinary Boundaries 72 III.2.0 Organizational Boundary Work 77 III.2.1 Boundary Performances 86 III.2.2 Boundary Exhibitions 93 III.3.0 Semantic Boundary Work 106 III.3.1 The Conceptual Turn in the Gallery Arts 108 III.3.2 Concept and Form in Sound Art 114 III.3.3 Form and Concept in Art Music 131 III.4.0 Boundaries of Identity 145 III.4.1 Crossing Boundaries 147 III.4.2 Fusing Disciplines 152 III.5.0 Boundary Work in the United States and Germany 158 III.5.1 Sound Art and Klangkunst 159 III.5.2 Rigid and Fluid Boundaries 166 iii IV. Inscribing Sound: Textual Value Devices in Auditory Culture 169 IV.1.0 The Language of Value 169 IV.2.0 Cognition and Meaning in Cultural Economy 172 IV.3.0 Textual Value Devices 175 IV.3.1 Artist Statements 180 IV.3.2 Critical Response 199 IV.4.0 Explanations for the Conceptual Language of Sound Art 204 IV.4.1 Art Historical Path Dependency 205 IV.4.2 Technical Maladaptation 212 IV.4.3 Sensory Learning 230 IV.5.0 Sound and Sight, Listening and Reading 242 V. Hearing Value: Taking Time for Perception and Understanding 244 V.1.0 For or Against Ambience 244 V.2.0 The Sensus Communis in Aesthetic Philosophy 247 V.3.0 The Stream of Consciousness in Social Phenomenology 253 V.3.1 Attention: Noesis and Noema 256 V.3.2 Adumbration: Temporal Boundaries 262 V.3.3 Affect: Attitudes and Meaning-Making 266 V.4.0 The Sense of Value 271 V.4.1 Concept and Ambience 272 V.4.2 Judgment and Conviction 278 V.4.3 Taste and Sensation 282 V.5.0 Embodied Perception, Expanded Discourse 286 V.6.0 Learning to Listen 295 A. Appendix A: Methods 297 A.1.0 Research Design 297 A.1.1 Research Questions 297 A.1.2 Qualitative Rationale 298 A.2.0 Modes of Inquiry 299 A.2.1 Interviews 300 A.2.2 Observation 307 A.3.0 Data Analysis 312 A.3.1 Grounded Theory 312 A.3.2 Hermeneutic Analysis 313 A.4.0 Ethical Considerations 314 A.4.1 Consent 314 A.4.2 Confidentiality 315 A.4.3 Reflexivity 316 A.5.0 Limitations 317 B. Appendix B: Project Information Sheet 319 C. Appendix C: Interview Guide 322 iv D. Appendix D: Lexicon 324 Bibliography 327 v LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1: (Left) Cross-sectional View of the Human Ear (Gelfand 2004, p. 39) and (Right) Coronal View of the Human Brain (Arnott and Alain 2014, p. 87) 2 Fig. 2: Yoko Ono. Cut Piece. 1964. Performed by Yoko Ono in New Works of Yoko Ono at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York on March 21, 1965. Photo: Minoru Niizuma, courtesy of Yoko Ono. © Minoru Niizuma 2015. 104 Fig. 3: Alfred Stieglitz. Fountain (photograph of assisted readymade by Marcel Duchamp). 1917. Gelatin silver print. 9 1/4 x 7” (23.5 x 17.8 cm). New York: Collection Jacqueline Matisse Monnier. © 2010 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum/Artists Rights Society (ARS). 110 Fig. 4: Christine Sun Kim. The Sound of Frequencies Attempting to be Heavy . 2017. Charcoal on paper. New York: Rubin Museum. 124 Fig. 5: Gen Ken. Symphony No. 6 for Super Group . 2016. Performed at Experimental Intermedia in New York on January 10, 2016. 137 Fig. 6: La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. Dream House . 1993. New York: MELA Foundation. Photo: Marian Zazeela. 152 Fig. 7: Jung Hee Choi. Ahata Anahata, Manifest Unmanifest X . 2016. Mixed media: black wrap with pinholes, translucent paper, video. 23’ x 10’8”. New York: MELA Foundation. © Jung Hee Choi 2016 154 Fig. 8: Edwin Lo. Objekt . 2017. Multimedia sound installation in Meinblau Projektraum. Berlin: Singuhr. 162 Fig. 9: MSHR. Knotted Gate Presence Weave . 2017. Installation for Sonic Arcade . New York: Museum of Arts and Design. 185 Fig. 10: Stephan Moore. Diacousticon . 2014. Site-specific, interactive sound installation for eight robotic slide whistle/music box instruments and 8-channel at In the Garden of Sonic Delights. Katonah, NY: Caramoor. 189 Fig. 11: Richard Serra. Silence (for John Cage). 2015. Forged steel. One slab, overall: 16” × 29’ 6” × 9’ 2“ (40.6 cm × 9 m × 2.8 m). New York: Gagosian. Photo: Cristiano Mascaro. © Richard Serra. 200 Fig. 12: Max Neuhaus. Times Square . 1977-1992 and 2002-present. Digital sound signal beneath Broadway Avenue between 45th and 46th Streets. New York: Dia Art Foundation. 207 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The Audiovisual Litany (Sterne 2003, p. 15) 4 Table 2: Assemblage of Auditory Culture 7 Table 3: Jung Hee Choi. Rates of Frequency Change in Tonecycle Base 30 Hz, 2:3:7. © Jung Hee Choi 2011-2015 156 Table 4: Interview Locations 301 Table 5: Demographics 305 Table 6: Gender 306 Table 7: City 307 vii ABSTRACT Though auditory culture is quickly emerging in the gallery arts, with exhibitions popping up at prestigious museums around the world, the art world is still learning to listen. Based on 105 semi-structured interviews and four years of ethnographic observation in Chicago, New York, and Berlin, this dissertation considers the relationship between the senses and aesthetic value. Although it is a better fit than market, niche, or other field models, Bourdieu’s field of cultural production is not the best model for this empirical case either, due to evidence of overlapping definitions of boundaries, heterarchies of value, and the instability of sonic objects. First, disciplinary boundaries are not only worked out in organizational contexts, placing works of art and music on one side or the other, but actors also contest the definitions of what objects constitute their own disciplines. Without a shared knowledge of which sounds belong where, organizational and semantic boundary work employ these conflicting definitions to draw lines, particularly regarding the performed, exhibited, formal, or conceptual nature of sound. Furthermore, sound art has had to rely, paradoxically, on conceptual texts in order not to be mistaken for art music, which is valued through hearing, or the other gallery arts, which tend to be valued through sight. These textual value devices are the tools of economic agencement, rendering the aesthetic economic, but they cannot be readily aggregated into a single ranking of cultural consecration. Following these empirical findings, a final theoretical investigation into the nature of hearing calls on theories of perception in social aesthetics and phenomenology to question if sonic objects are perceived in socially stable ways. On the contrary, hearing is an embodied sensory process particular to the attention, adumbration, and affect of the listener, and it is unclear if sonic percepts are heard in common by evaluators. These findings suggest that rather than a field, auditory culture better resembles a rhizomatic assemblage, where language is viii the rhizome rendering the aesthetic economic. And yet, if embodied listeners in a sonic sensorium might be freed to associate meanings without a mediating text, these emancipated spectators may engage in expanded discourse. ix I. LEARNING TO LISTEN: KNOWLEDGE OF VALUE IN AUDITORY CULTURE “So, if paintings decorate space, then sound decorates time.” In an informal conversation at an experimental music performance, I described my dissertation research to someone who stopped by the venue on his way home. Unfamiliar with the abstract electronic music performed that night, he was charmed to discover a group of people who all seemed to know one another and whose social life revolved around what he found to be unintelligible sound. I explained that I studied both the kind of music performed in this space, which I termed “art music,” as well as “sound art” in museums and galleries. I went on to explain that, as a sociologist, I was curious to know his impression of what he heard. His pithy distillation of auditory culture in this epigraph became a hinge for my own thinking and a way to explain my empirical field site in later conversations with outsiders to the world of auditory culture. I.1.0 Sociology of Sound Though hearing is a marvel of the human body, perceived by the human mind, sounds are understood according to lifelong social learning.