Pattern in Islamic Art by David Wade (review)

Books 255 My notion is that sound sculpture is street art. The works of Bernard and FranCois Baschet serve as an example; they can be considered as much musical instruments as sculpted objects for which sound is a necessarycomplement. Some sound sculptures invite audience participation. Memories of play in childhood, evoked by the works of Klee and Miro, canbe re-enacted in play with some of these art objects. But the museums where one can viewmasterpiecesofthe past must bemodifiedto includethe new art of sound sculpture in order to permit children and adults to ‘play’ the instruments. Since the sound produced by some of these objects can readily be amplified,the presentation of works, such as those of the Baschet brothers, Luis Frangella and Tony Price, in open urban settings has often been very effective. Thisbook isusefulfor its historical anddescriptiveaccounts of sound sculpture, but it lacks a critical discussion about the potentialities of the art. Proceedings of the Eighth National/Internationd Sculpture Conference1974.Eldon C. Tefft, ed. National Sculpture Center. Lawrence, Kan., 1976.253pp., illus. Paper, $8.80. Reviewed by Art Brenner* These Proceedings, for the most part transcribed, are presentations by individuals and groups dealing variously with philosophical/esthetic propositions, with what an artist is attempting to do, and with how to doit. Although somepractical information is offered, I suspect a great deal more was imparted outside the organized meetings. The range of topics is wide: inflatables,plastics (polyesterand acrylic),wood, ceramics,light, sound, motion, theater, computer graphics. Of stone, no mention; of metal only the description of a sandcasting process. And this was a sculptureconference!Taken asa whole, this book isof interest not 90 much foritscontents asforits bearing witness to the current desperate state of the visual arts. Sculptor Howard Jones describes one of his pieces as having ‘incredible space’. It consists of an array of loudspeakers on a white (‘the absence of color’) wall reproducing the sounds of crickets, tree frogs and synthesized wind. It appears to me that Jones and many others aresubjectto apervasiveconfusion about the constituent elements of the various arts. Moreover, a leading question raised by, for example, sound displays being labelled ‘sculpture’ is whether such transpositions into another realm is not because it is too meager to remain in the sphere of music. In this connection, I am optimistically reminded of Happenings. Remember them? Sometimes stimulating, sometimes amusing, often dull, they were developed neither sufficientlyto be theater nor ‘plastic’enough to be considered visual art. Happenings are defunct-as any such incongruous activity was doomed to be. Such issues, however, do not appear to concern the coordinator of a round-table discussion who happily asks if ‘the arts are now so liberated that they are liberated from themselves’, and notes joyously that ‘frontiers are being dropped’. A question from the audience: ‘Arefrontiers beingdropped or iseverybodymoving in on everybody’s territory?’ No response from the panelists! In another lecture titled Steps Towards a Theory of Meaning, Harold Cohen attempts a justification of computer graphics based on ‘evocators’, images that convey meaning. ‘Given an appropriate set of human behavioral characteristics’, a computer could be programmed to produce evocators. I found myself resenting the idea of the proposed ‘very strong identity correlation’ with a computer. Cohen does not hesitate to contradict his program somewhat, for he often colors the computer productions by hand: ‘It is kind of cute’. What all this hasto do with sculptureescapesme. It should be noted, however, that in another session, slides were shown (but not reproduced) of a computer-designed sculpture and even of an all-computermade piece done with the aid of a 3-axis milling machine. Now, access to computers (outside of special situations) is quite limitedandexpensiveandto 3-axismillingmachines even more so. It is not surprising that most computer graphics appear to be produced by computers at universities where they are also known to serveasadministrative aids, asscientificresearch tools and as subjectsof study. Perhaps this is not the place to raise the *17 rue d’Aboukir, 75002 Paris, France. issue of art education, but, inasmuch as virtually every computer-oriented participant is also teaching art, I am led to wonder about the sort of art education emanating from ‘artists’ whose esthetics have...