In this portion of the class, we took an interesting look at non-cochlear art. Before going into these discussions, it was important to first have an understanding of what the word itself means – cochlea is essentially the spiral cavity of the inner ear, and it creates impulses and responses to sound vibrations over time. As major proponents of the field (such as Seth Kim-Cohen), sound itself is very much understood as a relationship-based construction. As he notes, we commonly think of wind blowing through grass, wheels on streets, forks clanking plates, etc. Similarly, we have found ourselves in a modern world in which sound produces vibrations in our ear, and we have thus cornered sound into this uniform definition.

As many of these artists note, however, sound can function in many ways the run contrary to this common understanding. For example, sound may function in a sound-like function and not actually end up making a sound. Terry Adkins has a great piece that highlights this idea quite well – the piece is titled Aviarium, in which Adkins has constructed a sound bite of a grasshopper sparrow and condensed it into a steel structure with a brass horn from a trumpet at the tip. To me, this piece does a great job of capturing the notion of non-cochlear art, as it makes no sound at first glance, but upon further inspection, we can see that there is an implied sound via the construction of the piece.

Further, Christine Sun Kim does an excellent job of capturing this idea of non-cochlear, which is development on Marchel Duchamp’s idea that visual expression is not simply “retina pleasure”; rather, it is much more conceptual than this. In Sun Kim’s Courtier as Courier, she places numerous iPads around a room with voiceless lectures playing on each one at different paces. For the listener, there is no sound other than the voices that fill the gallery – but what Sun Kim hopes is that there may be an implied sound coming from the running iPads. 

Lastly, we had an interesting reading in the Nichols book, focusing primarily on how to hack a toy by transforming radios, clocks, and many other objects. One of the main ways we can do this is by going through resistors, photoresistors, pressure pads, etc. In doing so, the Nichols reading does a great job of explaining the intricacies of each and a breakdown of how to do the “hacking” from start to finish.