Richard Billingham’s ‘Untitled (ral 50)’ from the series ‘Rays a laugh’ struck me as soon as I saw it. Apparently the image of the artists alcoholic father, it shows an elderly man turned around staring at what can only be described as an extremely angry looking cat. It is described by the artist to be ‘suffering on show’ with all ‘humanity removed’ The main thing that struck me however was not the imagery and feeling of the photograph but for me the sounds it portrayed. I instantly heard the screech of the cat, perhaps the muffled sound of a TV in the corner, or the crackle of the radio. This made me think what does all Art sound like? what sounds are conjured up in our imagination when we view other pieces? How do the sounds compare? This was the motivation for my one minute interactive piece which is as follows:

“Walk in the room and find a painting you enjoy, or appeals or attracts you to it in some way. It doesn’t matter if there are more than one person next to a painting, you will all have your own outlook and interpretation. Once you are in front of the piece of art I want you to cover your ears, put your fingers in them or whatever, and block out all noise the best you can. I want you to zone into every detail of the painting and I want you to take in the impact of the piece. Most of all I want you to hear the artwork, what does it sound like? For some people who have chosen a more realistic painting it may be the sound of a dog barking or siren, but for others the sound that it imagined may be more abstract or even stranger. This is fine, encouraging even.

I want you to let these sounds and noses, voices even wash over completely for 30 seconds when I say and then after 30 seconds I want everyone to turn and face the middle of the room. I would then like you as artists, as performers, to recreate these noises, forget about feeling stupid or self-conscious, just recreate your audial thoughts. I will record these noises and it will be the conscious sound of art.  And perhaps this goes someway to examine my question, what does art sound like?” (Watson, 2015)

The response I received by the participants was extremely satisfying, The eruption of noise perfectly clashed with the usually silent gallery but yet seemed to strangely fit well. Almost as if the painting themselves knew it was the their own sound. There was whistles, coughing, chatter, singing and humming to name a few, and I recorded it so I have a permanent record of these organic reactions to Art

The Sound of Art (2015) [ recording] Tom Watson. 8th February 2015.

Image from :

http://www.historyextra.com/family