Heft 04 / Oktober 2017

Zusammenfassung:

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Summary:

Sound and Critique: Douglas Barrett on Critical Music in Post-Conceptual Times – In his book After Sound: Toward a Critical Music, G Douglas Barrett joins those trying to establish an expanded concept of music. He tackles the challenges that music poses primarily from the viewpoint of current debates in the visual arts. Working with examples far from the mainstream of music and contemporary art, he fleshes out a concept of music that considers meaning and the formation of social relationships to be integral elements. As he sees it, sound art cannot be the solution because this would revert to an obsolete idea of medium; instead, he proposes a non-essentialist understanding of medium that allows an understanding of the medial complexity of musical works, in which sound is only one element. In his view, music can make an important contribution to the current attempts at forging a decidedly political contemporary art.

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