Overtoon – Platform for Sound Practioners
presents

Instead of “sound art,” say: abrasion, a dirge,
willed from the other side of a leaky room,
undisciplined, celebrative, dangerous, always
emerging.
An 8-part Podcast by Bill Dietz
In conversation with Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Nikita Gale, Jennie C. Jones,
Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman, Jennie C. Jones, Marina Rosenfeld, Lauren Tosswill, &Hong-Kai Wang
https://overtoon.org/podcasts/instead-of-sound-art-say/

Episode 04: Jennie C. Jones
Released on March 28th, 2024

Audio TranscriptAudio Intro[Sounds of a cassette tape mechanism and tape hiss, followed by voices of all eightparticipants in the series uttering variations on the word “sound” and “sound art.”
More cassette tape sounds, followed by the voices of all eight participants
simultaneously saying the word “SOUND” in a loop. More cassette tape sounds,
followed by “male” and “female” computer voices read the complete title of theseries (“Instead of “sound art,” say: abrasion, a dirge, willed from the other side of aleaky room, undisciplined, celebrative, dangerous, always emerging.”) and the
Episode Number. Cassette tape sounds cut out.]

Conversation[Throughout the conversation there is series of unpredictably and frequently
shifting virtual audio backgrounds – atmospheres recorded by Bill Dietz & Bryce
Hackford including children playing outdoors, howling wind, a public bus trip, rain
and thunder, nature sounds with a distant saxophone, a quiet field, electrical buzz,
and an outdoor scene populated by cicadas.]Bill Dietz:

I guess the way I’ve been sort of starting these conversations
has been to not let sound art be this nebulous, vague thingthat can mean anything, but to say there’s this particular
history from the late ‘70s when particular people thought theworld somehow needed this term and they had their reasonsfor that. And of course a lot has changed and there was maybe
even questions at the time as to how needed that was. But justto make sure it’s this specific thing, this funny specific history,
which of course has gone in a million different directions andmeans a million different things now. But I’m curious: do you
ever even call any of your work "sound art?"

Jennie C. Jones:[Jennie’s dog Nina barks] ...she’s very aware when I’m on thecomputer and immediately starts acting out.
I feel like because I went to the Art Institute of Chicago in the‘80s this term was there because we had 4D. We had to take
2D, 3D and 4D, and the fourth dimension was performance art,
sound, video. So I was lucky to have that imprint, but alsothen it had all these parameters on it...it had a lot ofelectronics and a lot of hardware attached to it, and that mademe think that just listening and having ideas about sound was
not [sound art]. That was something else. And maybe that was
something that was private in the studio and not a thing that

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was part of my work. It is so specific.
And when I saw your email, I thought of this one moment I
had with George Lewis, who I talk about all the time. He wasactually at the art institute, but I didn’t study with him. I
would just see him walking around with his little fro and abutton down Oxford and he would always be holding anoscilloscope or something. He started a talk that we did
together by opening up the Tate Modern’s website andscrolling through their definition of sound art and scrollingthrough the artists that they highlight. He just looked at me
and said, "Where are we?" It was such a simple exercise, but tosee that such a specific origin story didn’t really encompass
90% of sound and music production around the world, it wasso much like, "I don’t know electronics, so I can’t participate,"or something.
Bill Dietz:

No, but that’s really such a thing because I think, like I was
saying, there was this apparent need to create this new genre,or term, or whatever. And obviously it was meant to specify
something, but by specifying it also excluded so much, I think.
And that’s become so achingly apparent over the years.

Jennie C. Jones:

When you talk about this web, all these different directions,
can you see a trifecta of directions, or is it ... I’m just curious
from your perspective.

Bill Dietz:

I think there are, but I don’t know for me how helpful theyare. There’s for sure this techie, also kind of bro-y thing that’s
maybe connected to media art that is still I think in Europe.
And parts of the US, but maybe much more so in Europe.
Very well funded, has its own institutions. And strange because
it has its own standards, too. In that world, maybe your work
doesn’t have to be about anything. I don’t even know whatthat means, but ... Then I think for me, there are kind ofinteresting, weirdo outliers. People like Max Neuhaus or
Maryanne Amacher or David Tudor who kind of came throughthe end of "classical composition". They started by making
pieces for instruments, but then they ended by making thesesituations and these other things.
And for me personally, I guess that history has beeninteresting, but also I don’t know. I think one of the big
problems for me, and this came up when I spoke last week with

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Ben Piekut, is the severing of music history from supposedsound history, as though you can do that.
Jennie C. Jones:

That’s huge. That’s it. I mean, that’s kind of the crux of it
because there’s only so many entry points. And in a way, thatis the most accessible, the most universal, the most understoodby anyone, any person on the street that has a favorite song,whatever. But then those doors start to close so quickly andthey go through academic channels and also throughtechnological channels that start to get more and more andmore narrow. And that’s when I feel like I don’t really want tocall myself a sound artist... I feel like I’m a visual artist who
uses sound as a material. That’s what I’ve said, just in the same
way that I don’t really still really think I’m a painter. I think
I’m a conceptual artist that uses paint as a material. And I
think that it could be seen as a cop out, but it also is kind oflike ... It’s more about the utility of things to convey
something, like finding a means to convey an idea, concept, or
emotion. It’s been more emotional. I think it’s been more
emotional the last couple of years than it is about hard ideas.

Bill Dietz:

But that’s one of the things that I think is so interesting and sosad about this partitioning of sound artists, these special
spheres, because not just music, but sound is a place in all
kinds of genres and different historical paths of it where there
can be this kind of complexity of emotional "expression" or
nonverbal expression. And I mean that not in a romantic or
sentimental way, per se, but those things as forms ofintelligence that maybe we don’t have the most immediate
language for or maybe they’re culturally devalued orsomething like that. But these are the most important areas oflife in a way.

Jennie C. Jones:

Absolutely.

Bill Dietz:

And music and sound are places where one can deal with thesekind of nonverbal things so precisely, actually.

Jennie C. Jones:

Yep. And at one point I would think that visual arts practice
had permission to say that, but it is so ensconced in language.
And so trapped in criticism and a very linear history, that thatsuper fundamental way of expressing something outside oflanguage gets language put on it. And that’s exactly what
happens with music theory as well.

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But when you were talking about sound art, the most blatantkind of translation for me was just that white box, and how
sound lives in this white box. And the show I had at The
Kitchen was the first time there was a white box inside of a
black box. That was super meta. And to have that situation
where the organization, the history, the people there were able
to facilitate anything that I was wanting to craft. And that still
remains such a unique platform because otherwise, how does itenter those spaces?
So then it becomes about architecture, it becomes about
physics and acoustics. And that’s when I only go so far, like allof us, to understand acoustics in any physical space you enter
because someone says, "Hey, you make sound. Put something
here..." It’s going to be different everywhere you go. And thenheadphones are horrible, and seeing cables on the floor... Allof that is like 25-year-old discussion for me in terms of starting
predominantly as a visual artist and then tiptoeing into letting
my listening practices in my studio become part of the work,
which is basically what that was. And then immediately in thatwhite box situations, it’s like, "hide the cables or show thecables?" I mean, it’s A or B. Then is that a sculpture? If you
put the speaker in the middle of the floor with the cableattached to the wall, is that the piece? Do we sell the speaker? I
mean, really ridiculous conversations for something that starts
as a way to fill a space with an energy, really.
Bill Dietz:

And one of the things there that’s come up in some of thesetalks, too, but that I keep thinking about is there are all these
logistical questions, material questions, like you’re saying, but
the white box thing is also a question of value. How something
becomes audible or legible as something worth paying
attention to in a certain sense. And I think there’s something
in the term that has that problem in it, too. It’s like it needs tohave a name in order for it to be deemed worth paying
attention to or something like this. And there’s some kind oftrap there, I think, where it’s like there is so much sonic andmusical intelligence in the world that doesn’t need the white
cube. And yet, it can also just go sort of unheard orunappreciated in a big way.
And how to turn our attention to where these kind of otherintelligences are happening or creativities or virtuosities even
without molding them to fit into these modes that have allthese other histories and all these other problems. I guess it’s aPage 5 of 10

question of recognition or even in an old fashioned way kindof representation, like how something becomes recognizable
and valuable. Sorry, that was a bit of a rambling.
Jennie C. Jones:

No, it’s spot on, especially with something that’s ephemeral innature and operating in a space that capitalizes and focuses onmateriality. So there’s the thing right there. For me, it’s always
been just another texture, but it was very rarely in that kind ofparticular art market driven environment. It’s not really athing. It’s like something they let me do, but it’s not really ofinterest necessarily. Institutions are different. I mean, putting
something in Philip Johnson’s Glass House and in the
sculpture space there was profound because of being able topush against that narrative, to occupy that space and to think
about the years that those structures were built. That was theconceptual in...just what was happening in 1971 when you
were building this place to put all of your sculpture. Well, it
was like Kent State shootings. There was war, there waspolitical protests, there was a lot of pushing from the Black
Panther party, being arrested, people being assassinated.
And so yeah, let’s take some of that energy and put that insideof this pristine piece of architecture with the Chamberlain
sculpture in the lower level and see. So there’s moments where
I feel really proud of being able to use sound to craft things inthat particular conceptual way, but it’s always the prompt isbeing invited someplace to be a disruptor or to build aconnection. So it takes the institution to be open enough tomake that possible and be willing to let that sort of expansive
shift happen. And without it being like we’re in our great ageof reparations, so there’s definitely some eye rolling with some
invitations.

Bill Dietz:

Yeah.

Jennie C. Jones:

Anyway, talk about digression... That was me spiraling into mycoffee moment.

Bill Dietz:

No, no. I was thinking about your ... Sorry, I forget the nameof the institution, but your Aeolian harp piece.

Jennie C. Jones:

Yeah, at The Clark.

Bill Dietz:

At The Clark. I was thinking about the Aeolian harp piece inrelation to what you were writing in the email about the dirge

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in a way, about taking these kind of existing structures and ...
It’s not like a question per se of institutional critique in any
kind of historical kind of way, but at the same time not justcelebrating them. In a certain sense, taking the fact that this iswhat we have to work with as maybe an occasion for grief.
Jennie C. Jones:

Yeah, I know. And I was thinking about...I had to read a little
bit about dirge because I love that word. And then when I
threw it back at you. I was just like, "Wait, I don’t really
actually know any"...this sort of weird Latin root word
history, but it doesn’t matter. But I am that person. Any kindof lament or song of grief or sorrow, there’s no deeper history
than that. Dirge...it’s such a good word. And it made me thinkof drone and dirge relationships. And I snuck in a little tinyline that I still feel like was quite a stretch at the Guggenheim
to talk about circular breathing and Roscoe Mitchell and thedifference between creating a drone kind of consistent soundthrough that method versus digital methods versus even a bow
on a violin trying to be a continual tone. And I’m still very
interested in that. And maybe it’s just where we are right now.
It feels pretty fucking apocalyptic in the world. And the
pandemic was only three years ago and we’re already acting
like it’s yesterday and it’s over. And so yeah, dirge is on mymind.
When we’re talking about the white box stuff, also that kind ofcontinuous tone is a really generative way to let people comeand go from a situation and not put timestamps on it. And I
think that still video, sound, all that tech stuff in a museum orgallery setting, it’s complicated. And as far back as I canremember, in the ‘90s even, when you see a black curtain up
you’re just like, "Do I want to go in there? What’s in there?
And then how long is it?" And you don’t know when you sit
down in this dark room with people and you’re like, "Should I
listen? Is it a listening thing or will the video start again?"
There’s a lot of weird anxiety about getting stuck in somethingthat may be five hours long and you don’t know what you’rebeing implicated in. But if there’s a continuum, it feels like agenerous thing because those people that want to sit on thefloor for an hour can do so. And those people that want towalk through and just get a little taste of what’s happening. So
I mean, it’s not placating to the audience, but it is a strategy tobe generous, I think, to think about that.

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Bill Dietz:

It is funny, though, how what you’re thinking is in a way, thatthe structures we have (I keep coming back to this kind of
institutional thing and including the concepts, like theconcept of sound or the concept of this or that) they’re sort ofvery ill fitting. Even the museum, like you say, the museum as ahistorical European structure wasn’t made for video art orwhatever. Wasn’t made for cables. And so there are theseweirdly fundamentally awkward things that don’t fit. And
we’ve been living in Florence for the last few years and when I
went to the Uffizi Gallery last, there’s great stuff there, butwhat I was really struck by in thinking about the history of themuseum is that place is not really made for looking.
The rooms are too small, so you can never get in the rightposition in relation to the thing. There’s nowhere to sit.
There’s always too much on the walls. There’s never any
information about what you’re looking at. And so what I cameaway with (and maybe that’s also just the current kind tourist
moment of museums, but I think it’s somehow in the structureof the place, too)...it’s like a place to bask in power in a certain
aura of something. And so yeah, this idea of what could evenbe a space for real looking or listening or ...

Jennie C. Jones:

What is a space for real listening? I mean, there’s always anassumption that if you’re interested in sound and music andmusic history that you go to live music, that you love to go see
things live. I don’t like going to see live concerts and it’s always
been so ... It’s such a weird, embarrassing confession ... I enjoy
listening to mediated music because I can be on the spectrum,
whatever at home. I can create whatever environment without
having to stand next to 1,000 people or wishing someone
would turn their phone off or whatever the thing is. So what
are those shared spaces anymore for listening? If it’s not a live
performance and it is sort of a mediated listening session, what
does that look like?

Bill Dietz:

I mean, I love listening at home. And I think in a funny way, if
not everyone, but most people do. That is the primaryexperience of music and enjoyment. I think it’s whether it’s onheadphones or on your stereo or whatever. And for me, justalso in my own art stuff, that’s actually a lot of what I want tothink about and try to deal with, is that in a way the live
experience or the public public group experience is really the
exception for everyone, unless you’re a music student goingout every night or something. Well, I was just going to say one

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funny, a little example. I can never stop talking about
Maryanne Amacher, but John Cage asked her to do a soundpiece to go along with his eight hour long "Empty Words" text
deconstruction piece. Like Cage/Cunningham, her piece was aseparate piece and they both happened at the same time. And
they did it in late ‘70s, early ‘80s. And they both wanted torelease it, like a thing.
And she wrote the most beautiful NEA or something like that,
grant proposal. And essentially she says a little bit like what
you were saying. She says the live experience is actually theworst way to experience an eight hour long piece. If you hearit live, of course there can be really beautiful acoustic things
that happen in the room, but at the same time, who sits foreight hours and maintains attention? And then you’re going tohave that experience once in your life. And if you really wantto get into what the work is and feel it deeply and understandit, you need to do it at home. You need to be able to do it inyour own time. And so she uses the sort of metaphor of thebook, that she wants to think about releasing the sound piece
as a book, as a digital format where you can sort of drop in.
You can repeat things, you can ...
Jennie C. Jones:

Beautiful.

Bill Dietz:

And yeah, it was not funded, so it never happened…
But I’m so curious. You were saying before about your soundpieces, sort of like your listening practice kind of coming into
public space or something like this. But I’ve always been
curious, too, about your relationship with music in a way andhow that literally comes into the work. Also, just in the visual
work. Not even necessarily in a sound piece, but whether you
think of that in an analogy kind of way, or whether there’s
some kind of material emotional connection, or whether it’s
just inspiration, or if there is some kind of interestingarticulable relationship to ... Because I know how importantmusic is to you.

Jennie C. Jones:

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, especially because ourorigin stories shift and change over time. And I feel like thewhole thing cracked open when I thought as someone who’s a
bit obsessed with art history to layer music history underneathit and then to start to see all of the ebb and flow between those
two disciplines particularly post-war. So that was my major

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spark, was what I was listening to in the studio, was a lot in thelate ‘90s, was really a lot of hard bop, a lot of avant garde jazzand just a lot of weirdos, really. And realizing that how muchof that crafting what I was going to listen to in the studio
before one made a playlist on your phone was actually thishuge important sort of ritual for me. And then it just made me
really consider how much listening was a part of my muse, of
my process. And that searching for content, that the content
was in the room the whole time.
And that it also let me think about my body and Black bodies
in space in a different way that was liberating. I never really wasa figurative type of person, but it sort of just kicked open a lotof possibilities to embrace the fact that abstraction, theephemeral nature of things, time, social, political movements,
sacred geometry and music notation, and musicians that canread and musicians that play fully by ear: Bird, Dizzy, boom.
"Write this down for me." That it’s okay to say, "write thisdown for me." So I mean, it’s kind of a cheesy position, but
having gone through so much art school and not really seeing
the things that I wanted to see. And then taking 20 years tofind the courage to make the things that I want to see just to
make it myself. The "Just Above Midtown," just let’s just do it
ourselves vibe.
So yeah, I don’t read music. I still love certain graphic elementsof music notation. And that repeats in the visual work andthat’s starting to get weirder and looser and become my own
sort of vernacular of crescendos getting chopped in half andturning into these weird, soft, sharp, sculptural kind of things.
And a lot less ripping from existing music and looking more attones and tonal shifts and acoustics and instruments that are
not touched by hands and only touched by wind and things
like that. But it’s been a really strange, surprising, wonderfuljourney. It’s been really weird. There’s a lot of surprises that I
just never thought I’d be in my 50s and I would still be so
excited to be thinking about the same kind of things. That
there’s a core metaphor and a core juice energy that’s still
exciting.

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