“What is Sound Art?” Katsushi Nakagawa

Is it visual art that is conscious of sound and hearing, or is it acoustic art that goes beyond the framework of music? Approaching the intersection of art, music, media, and space.

How did the ambiguous and fascinating art field of ``sound art'' come into existence, which at first glance includes a variety of works related to sound and hearing? We will carefully trace each genealogy and thoroughly organize and explain it from the four contexts of visual art, sound art, attention to sound reproduction technology, and sound installation!

When I am asked what sound art is, I try to answer that sound art is a label or genre name that refers to art related to sound and hearing in a broad sense. It's not just music, it's not just visual art, but it's not music, it's not art, it's something completely different. In other words, there is no strict definition of sound art, and its meaning differs depending on the individual advocate or example. However, there is a general area referred to by the term sound art. This book deals with this vague area. From “Introduction”

Katsushi Nakagawa (Katsushi Nakagawa)

Born in 1975. He completed the doctoral course in Aesthetics and Art History at the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. He is a Ph.D. (literature). His specialty is acoustic culture theory. History, theory, and philosophy of sound in art since the late 19th century (art with sound, sound art research, acoustic media theory, popular music research, sound studies, etc.).
Currently an associate professor at Yokohama National University Graduate School of Urban Innovation Research. He is a staff member of the Faculty of Urban Sciences, Department of Urban Social Coexistence, Graduate School of Urban Innovation, Department of Architecture and Urban Culture, Department of Urban Culture (Arts and Culture Area), and Y-GSC.

Major achievements include co-authored History of Sound Media (2015, Nakanishiya Publishing), co-translator Jonathan Stern's Hearing the Past: The Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (2015, Inscript), Aiming for a ``history of art with sound'' in Japan - Focusing on the magazine Bijutsu Techo from the 1950s to the 1990s'' (Shuhei Hosokawa (ed.) ``Thinking from sound and ears: History, body, technology'' ( 2021, Artes Publishing) etc.