Lavalampen kaster et pink skær ud i soveværelset, en svag summen, det tager lidt tid inden væsken inde i lampen bliver varmet op og boblerne begynder at dele sig. Et sted i det pink mørke til venstre for mig ligger et lille barn. Det rører på sig, giver lyd fra sig, det er svært at beskrive, det lyder som en prusten, det nedadgående forløb som afslutter hestens vrinsk, mere og mere insisterende, en slags crescendo som hiver mig op af søvnen, lag for lag. Den lille hest er sulten.

The following essay is derived from a lecture given in August 2019 as a keynote for the RE:SOUND Media Arts Histories conference in Aalborg, Denmark. At the invitation of conference chairs Morten Søndergaard and Laura Beloff, I had the honour of opening the event’s deliberations – which took place just before the start of a new academic year, in the early hours of the first day of the conference and in front of a group of people I respect, admire, and have now known for many, many years.

The work of digital artists and musicians is enabled by technological commodities that have problematic pasts. To utilize technical devices for creative, expressive ends is also to contribute to the cycle of production and obsolescence involved with global capitalism. A serious consideration of the electronic artist’s position within this framework invites an ethical examination of technologically-based practice in relation to the overall waste and exploitation that its connection to technological commodification entails.

In 1989 John Cage started working on a commissioned project for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) – a chance-derived, four-movement composition for museum entitled Rolywholyover   A Circus. This was a long-term performative, multicentred event for gallery installers, audiences, artworks, artifacts, scores, plants, stones, books, chess tables, chairs, and pieces of ephemera. According to Julie Lazar, the MOCA curator who worked with Cage on this project, while doing trials and preparations for Rolywholyover the artist composed two other compositions for museum. Both of these other works were smaller in scale: Changing Installation (1991) for the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh and museumcircle (1991) for the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek in Munich.

In September 2012 I visited the now seminal exhibition Sound Art – Klang als Medium der Kunst at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. In my mind, I have returned to this exhibition continually ever since, and each time one installation stands out: Bruce Nauman’s Für Kinder. The piece is a stereo sound installation where Nauman’s voice is heard repeating over and over the words “für Kinder, für Kinder, für Kinder” with a strong American accent. The installation’s four speakers are hidden within the walls of a rectangular white space, which at the ZKM was sufficiently sealed from the rest of the surroundings to enact its own white cube both on auditory and visual levels.

The 8th International Conference on the Histories of Media Arts, Science and Technology, RE:SOUND 2019, took place at Aalborg University in Aalborg, Denmark between August 20 and 23, 2019. RE:SOUND is part of the Media Art Histories conference series, which has brought together leading researchers, artists, and scientists on a series of interdisciplinary topics for over 14 years.

Danmark er langsomt begyndt at genåbne efter et stille forår. Teatre og koncertsale overalt i verden har været lukket, og kunstnere, kulturinstitutioner og festivaler har forsøgt at finde et ekstra liv online i en pandemisk virkelighed. Vi har set et væld af nye digitale formater i kulturlivet. Den norske samtidsmusikfestival Only Connect gik online med skræddersyede projekter til det digitale format, og danske teatre har udviklet virtuelle værker som Det Kongelige Teaters Karantæne, Østerbro Teaters Coronamonologerne og Teater V’s Safe Space. Operahuse verden over har streamet et utal af gratis livekoncerter og arkivoptagelser; til gengæld har de tøvet mere med egentligt nye digitale formater. Den nuværende situation kan imidlertid være en god anledning til at gentænke operagenren i en digital kontekst.