The current art field is full of sound: audible and inaudible, infrasound, ultrasound, sonifications of data, sound machines, field recordings, sound installations, digital sounds, biological sounds, sound walks, sounds from instruments, sounds of voices and so on. Sound art is a diverse field. It comprises a wide range of different artistic practices in which sound is a central element and occurs in a variety of formats and contexts, crossing conventional boundaries between art genres and institutions. It is released on records and distributed online, it is exhibited at museums and galleries, and it is performed at festivals for new music, sound art and media art, in night clubs, and in open public spaces. Despite this abundance of sonic expressions, sound art is still, as Christoph Cox noted in 2011, ‘profoundly undertheorized’.

This conference wants to focus on ‘sound art matters’: on how sound art matters, how sound in art matters, and on the matter of which sound art is made. Instead of seeking to categorize and define what sound art is, the conference seeks to develop a more precise understanding of the terms, ontologies and epistemologies we operate within. How and why does sound and sound art matter within artistic and academic discourses ranging from a focus on materiality to contextual meaning, from technological media to embodied experience?

The conference wishes to bring together researchers and practitioners in order to investigate the state of the art of this field, and potentially to open it up further. We therefore encourage perspectives that go beyond the exclusive theories of art, and also embrace a broad spectrum of cultural theory, media theory, philosophy and practice-based experiments. As a secondary goal we wish to establish a more formalized network between European researchers working with sound art that can serve as a platform for future collaborations.

• Morten Søndergaard
• Sanne Krogh Groth
• Ulrik Schmidt
• Marie Højlund
• Morten Riis 
• Anette Vandsø

This conference has been supported by the Danish Council for Independent Research’s Sapere Aude, Young Elite Researchers Grant, as part of the research project called A World in Sound, conducted by A. Vandsø.