“Soundings” is MoMA’s first exhibition dedicated solely to “sound art”. It features installations by 16 contemporary artists working with sound – these include notables such as Susan Philipsz (Scotland), Stephen Vitiello (America), Richard Garet (Uruguay), Marco Fusinato (Australia).

Recent reviews for “Soundings” have revealed some interesting attitudes held by critics towards the discipline of “sound art”. As each review contains common reactions to the show some general conclusions can be drawn about the type of sound-art critics prefer:

1. Installations using recognisable sounds or familiar melodic structures are received favourably.

2. Installations that utilise abstracted or dissonant sounds are received unfavourably.

Installations featuring voice, strings, and field recordings fared well in the reviews, these sounds being melodic or familiar to the listener. Thus, for sound art to be “successful”, must the audience recognise the source of the sounding object, or do the reviews merely reflect a conservatism…

I was recently invited to curate a show about field recording and sound art for Soundproof on Australia’s ABC Radio National. For one hour Soundproof’s host Miyuki Jokiranta and I discussed the physicality of sound and soundscapes, listening to works by Hildegard Westerkamp, Andrea Polli, Richard Garet, Chris Watson, Heiki Vester, Jacob Kirkegaard.

My selection of pieces was intended to showcase the diversity of interests and styles that is explored by contemporary field recordists and artists working with sound. Join Miyuki and myself to listen to sounds from deserts to Antarctic research stations to huskies and helicopters to Mexican train lines to Norwegian killer whales to the vibrations of German bridges.

This show is now available to download directly from the ABC.

Now that DD Day 2014, our touring events and education pilot work are complete, it remains for us to thank everyone who has made this another successful and inspiring venture.

DD Day 2014 image by Andrea Pazos

All the venues for being so helpful and hard-working; the audiences for being so supportive and being open to absording 3 hour’s worth of Delia-n delights including some pretty radical cross music genre programming; to photographers, journalists and radio/TV stations; to Arts Council England for subsidising our work; One Education and John Rylands here in MCR for helping make the education pilot project happen; the schools’ staff and pupils who were inspired by Delia and were also inspiring in turn with the animated TV themes they composed; the Delia Darlings team on the road and in MCR.

The Consequences of Falling – photo by Sam Huddleston

And of course thanks to Delia…