Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Western Art

The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Western Art is the first book to examine, under one umbrella, different kinds of analogies, mutual influences, integrations and collaborations of audio and visual in different art forms: painting, sculpture, installation, architecture, performance art, animation, film, video art, visual music, multimedia, experimental music, sound art, opera, theatre and dance. Sitting at the cutting edge of the field of music and visual arts, the book offers a unique, at times controversial view of this rapidly evolving area of study. The book is organized around three core thematic sections.

The first, Sights & Sounds, concentrates on interaction between the experience of seeing and the experience of hearing. Sound, Space & Matter expands the idea of music to include environmental sounds, vibrating frequencies, homemade instruments, linguistic utterances, noise and silence. Architecture, likewise, faces a similar discourse that examines non-material spaces, environments, human habitats, performances, destruction and void.

Enhanced by advanced digital technologies, this aesthetic shift opened the door for endless experiments, which give a new context to theoretical issues such as medium, matter and process in creating and perceiving art. In the third section, Performance, Performativity & Text, music as a performing art provides the point of departure. The new light shed by modernism and the avant-garde on the performative aspect of music have led it - together with sound and text - to become active in new ways in contemporary dance, theatre and the visual arts.

The chapters in the handbook make and prove their arguments using case studies in contemporary art, music, and sound as illustrations, building upon exsiting thought as a foundation for discussion. Artists, curators, students and scholars will find here a panoramic view of cutting-edge discourse in the field, by an international roster of scholars and practitioners.