SOUND MACHINES is an online exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Feral File that focuses on sound and technology. Artists are Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst; Yoko Ono; Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley; Tommy Martinez and American Artist; and 0xDEAFBEEF. Each work engages with sound and technology in innovative ways, affording different modes of interactivity.
The exhibition continues a legacy of related research, commissions, publications, and exhibitions at the intersection of sound and digital or computer-generated art at MoMA.
Yoko Ono’s SOUND PIECE V (1996/2024) is newly realized as a digital, on-chain interactive work. Ono transformed the traditional musical score into an instruction, simple written prompts eliciting extraordinary sounds from everyday activities: “Tape the sound of friends laughing together. / Save it for a rainy day.” Each time the piece is performed, participants can add their recordings, successively building an ever-evolving archive of sound.
Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst’s Play from Memory (2024) is a series of machine-generated works informed by Carl Orff’s Schulwerk, a set of music education methods and “imitation games” for children developed in the 1920s. The work highlights striking similarities between the ways in which Orff aspired for children to learn music, and how we train machines to learn music today.
Upending traditional roles of player and played, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s CANCEL YOURSELF (2024) is a multisensory, interactive game and poster collection asking the player to decide how they would like to “cancel” themselves. CANCEL YOURSELF is set to an ambient score: “Listen hard. Don’t let the sound wash over you.”
American Artist and Tommy Martinez create a new generative interface that remixes a recording of their sound piece Integrity Protocol/Lower Limb Lecture (2023/24). Audiences can explore new sonic textures by experimenting with the custom interface.
In PAYPHONE (2024) by 0xDEAFBEEF, the artist considers phone cards as an early form of tokenized communication in relation to contemporary blockchain ledger systems. PAYPHONE features uniquely generated phone card tokens, which will be updated with sound pieces based on a live call-and-response performance by the artist.
The exhibition will be freely viewable online; the works will also be available via online auction as a set (minted on Ethereum), one work from each artist, 30 available sets in total. Editions, inspired by the works in the exhibition and set at an approachable price point, will also be made available after the highest-bid auction closes. Proceeds will go to the artists; to benefit sound art and collection care at The Museum of Modern Art; and to Feral File for production costs.
SOUND MACHINES organized by MoMA on Feral File feralfile.com/exhibitions
SOUND MACHINES opens for preview on February 29th, 2024. Collecting begins March 14th.
About
The Museum of Modern Art connects people from around the world to the art of our time. We aspire to be a catalyst for experimentation, learning, and creativity, a gathering place for all, and a home for artists and their ideas. @themuseumofmodernart
Feral File commissions curated exhibitions of digital artwork and partners with artists and institutions to explore new ways of exhibiting and collecting. Evolving from the art gallery and digital publishing models, Feral File borrows the best traits of each to inform a new kind of art space. Feral File works in tandem with a community of technologists, new media artists, collectors, and curators to redefine and frame a sustainable model for the future of digital experimentation. @feralfile
