The Sound of Art
SCAD deFINE ART keynote introduction delivered by Paula Wallace for honorees Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller on Wednesday, February 21, 2018.
Welcome to SCAD deFINE ART!
When I first created SCAD — 40 years ago this fall — the world was a very different place for artists. Back then, if you said you actually wanted to study and have a career in art, well, people either patted you on the head or assumed you were just listening to a lot of David Bowie.
Forty years later, artists remain bold as ever, but the world has changed. Art and design define our most important national conversations, from #MeToo to the newest works at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. How about those Presidential and First Lady portraits unveiled last week?
Many of you probably remember Kehinde Wiley’s two thousand eleven exhibition at the SCAD Museum of Art. His and Amy Sherald’s commissions are history-making. And, I have to say, it was downright dreamy to see everybody on Twitter debating the evolution of portraiture last week.
Art is everywhere. Think about it: This building, this theater, the seats, your jewelry, your shoes, the phones in your jackets, and your jackets, too! The creative professions of SCAD surround us all, in what we see, touch, taste — even in what we smell. (SCAD now teaches fragrance design!)
Let us not forget sound! Game designers employ sound to create urgency and action. Architects create distinctive sounds with space and material. Writers shape the human voice in stories and podcasts and screenplays. Sound resonates through nearly every degree program of SCAD, and that’s why our students should listen closely to tonight’s honorees, two legendary artisans of sense and sound.
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller have collaborated for more than thirty-five years, ever since their very first date back in art school.
Legend has it, George brought the six-pack and a sound recording. Janet brought her camera. They watched TV with the sound off, listening to George’s music and taking photos of the screen. Might just be an art student’s dream date.
Students, what happens in art school does not stay in art school! Who you meet at SCAD matters. Pick your dates wisely!
In many ways, Janet and George’s collaborative career has been defined by sound, and how it alters, deepens, and broadens our emotional experience of the world. Research has shown why sound is so powerful: While words and images engage the intellect, sound rushes past reason and into our most personal selves, into that place where memory lives.
This primal urgency of the sensory experience explains why Janet and George’s transcendent aural masterpieces — such as “The Forty Part Motet” and “Forest (for a thousand years)” — can both move listeners to tears and elevate participants to ecstatic visions. Their double installations, now at the SCAD Museum of Art, work magic upon the ears and eyes and body in a way you won’t soon forget. You’ll never look at a table full of stereo speakers or a stranger’s record collection the same way again.
Auditory neuroscientist Seth Horowitz says, “Listening is a skill we’re in danger of losing in a world of digital distraction and information overload.” The extraordinary collaborations of Janet and George are an antidote to that loss. For they have made us more conscious of what we hear, helping us listen, to the world around us, to ourselves, and, most importantly, to one another.
Please join me in honoring Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller.
