[Column] Boundary history of performance art and music | Practices since the 20th century where bodies, actions, and sounds intersect
Column en Avant-Garde Contemporary Art Performance Art![[Column] Boundary history of performance art and music | Practices since the 20th century where bodies, actions, and sounds intersect](/../assets/images/column-performance-art-music.webp)
Prologue: When did sound become “action”?
Text: mmr｜Theme: A long-form study that traces the history of how performance art and music have intersected and redefined the body, time, and space, based only on facts.
Music has long been understood as a combination of the design act of composition and the reproduction act of performance. There, musical scores were central, and sound was merely the realization of visualized information. However, in the 20th century, this assumption began to rapidly shake. Urban noise due to industrialization, the spread of recording technology, and the expansion of popular culture have transformed sound from ““an object to be controlled” to ““something that exists in the environment.”
At the same time, in the field of art, there is a growing movement to place more value on the production process and the act itself than on the completed object. Events that occur outside of paintings and sculptures, the passage of time, and the reactions of the audience have come to be recognized as part of the work. Music was also not unrelated to this trend.
In this chapter, we will summarize the historical background that led to sound transcending the framework of music and being reconsidered as actions and situations, and clarify the premises of each subsequent chapter.
The moment sound was recognized as an action, music began to stand on the same level as art.
Chapter 1: Futurism and the release of noise
In Italy at the beginning of the 20th century, rapid industrialization and urbanization were changing people’s sensory environment. The sounds of steam engines, internal combustion engines, and factories filled the city with a sound pressure and persistence that was unimaginable in music up until then. Futurist artists saw this change as progress rather than decadence, and actively tried to affirm it from the artistic side.
The intonalmoli, conceived by Luigi Russolo, is a device that focuses on the timbre and texture of noise rather than pitch. The act of playing by turning a handle and operating a lever was more like operating a machine than playing a musical instrument, and it made a strong visual impression. The audience hears the sounds and at the same time witnesses the performers’ physical movements.
Already here, music was presented not as something that could only be heard, but as an entire act on stage.
The act of bringing noise into music redefined the very concept of performance.
Chapter 2: Introduction to Dada and Chance
Dada activities do not have a unified style or technique. Instead, what was shared was a distrust of the existing value system. At a soirée at the Cabaret Voltaire, poetry readings turned into shouts, music dissolved into noise, and sudden physical movements interjected.
Importantly, these were not rigorously designed in advance. The chain of coincidences, the performer”s mood, and the audience”s reactions became the compositional elements of the piece. Music is no longer an object to be reproduced, but is generated as an ad hoc event.
This attitude later became the prototype for open structures in improvised music and performance art.
The moment I accepted chance, the work began to leave the creator’s hands.
Chapter 3: John Cage and the Turning Point of Silence
John Cage fundamentally challenged the premise that the composer is the main person who composes music. In ““4 minutes 33 seconds’’, the performer is present on the stage, but does not make any intentional act of pronunciation. As a result, the audience is forced to pay attention to environmental sounds that they had previously ignored.
This structure shifted the center of gravity from the act of ““creating” music to the act of ““listening.” A work is created not by its sonic content, but by its time frame and how it directs attention.
This idea is directly connected to the later idea of framing in performance art.
Music has not disappeared, but the way we listen to it has come to the fore.
Chapter 4: Fluxus and the musicalization of everyday actions
The biggest turning point that Fluxus presented was the dismantling of the special skill of ““playing music.’’ The event score was written as a set of instructions that can be performed by anyone without the need for specialized training. There, the importance is placed on the very fact that the act is performed, rather than accuracy or completeness.
For example, actions such as standing for a certain period of time, moving an object, or opening and closing a lid completely deviate from conventional musical value judgments. However, the subtle sounds, silence, and visual tension created by this act strongly captured the audience’s attention.
Music, before being an aural art, was redefined as an act with a temporal structure. The practice of Fluxus was directly connected to later conceptual art and performance art.
By presenting action as music, the stage was extended to everyday life.
Chapter 5: Sound as physical expression
Since the late 1960s, expressions using the body itself as a material have rapidly spread. In this trend, music came to be treated as something that naturally occurs as a result of physical actions, rather than as an element added from the outside.
The sound of breathing, the friction of vocal cords, and the sound of footsteps on the floor are amplified by a public address system and spread throughout the space. At the same time as the audience listens to the sound, they can visually confirm the tension, fatigue, and concentration of the body that is producing the sound.
In this structure, sound is an extension of the body, and the body becomes an instrument. Music and performance art overlap as devices that allow us to experience the same act with different sensations.
When the body sings, music becomes inseparable from visual art.
Chapter 6: Resonance of experimental music and performance
In the field of experimental music, the continuity and state of concentration of the performance act were treated as part of the work, as well as the acoustic structure. Phrases that are repeated over long periods of time or structures that only undergo slight changes place a strong strain on the performer’s body.
While the audience waits for the sound to change, they also pay attention to the performer’s posture, breathing, and eye movements. The musical experience changes from an auditory-centered appreciation to an experience of sharing time.
Here, the very act of playing is foregrounded as a performance.
The act of watching a performance has begun to carry the same weight as the act of listening.
Chapter 7: Visualization of electronic music and manipulation behavior
The advent of electronic musical instruments has greatly changed the relationship between music production and performance. The act of turning a knob, flipping a switch, or manipulating a parameter instantly results in a sonic change.
This responsiveness made the performance visually understandable. The audience directly witnesses the causal relationship between changes in sound and bodily movements.
In electronic music, performance has become not just the act of producing sound, but the act of operating the system itself.
Technology has not multiplied the sound, but the layer of action.
Chapter 8: Collective performance in club spaces
In club culture, the musical experience is not an individual experience but a collective act. The DJ booth is both a stage and a control room. The act of selecting a record and operating the mixer is directly connected to the physical reactions of the audience.
On the dance floor, individual bodies synchronize to the rhythm and form a collective undulation. Here, music becomes a device that drives the entire space, and the audience themselves become the bearers of the performance.
When the audience becomes participants, the stage disappears.
Chapter 9: Museums/Festivals and Hybridization
In the 21st century, the functional differences between museums and music festivals have rapidly narrowed. Sound works performed in exhibition spaces are presented as timed performances, and images and spatial design are prerequisites for music events.
The audience not only ““appreciates’’ the work, but completes the experience by staying in the place and placing their bodies there. The genre classification is merely a matter of operational convenience; the experience design is the core of the work.
The boundaries have not disappeared, but the focus of the question has shifted.
Chronology: A two-tiered timeline of performance art and music
Diagram: Overlap of music and performance
Final Chapter: Attitude to Cross Boundaries
The history of the relationship between performance art and music is not just a story that crosses genres. This is a shift in our perception of how we perceive sound, the body, and time.
As the work moved from objects to events, and music from reenactment to action, the two came to share the same awareness of issues. Questions such as what constitutes a work, who is the subject, and what constitutes an artistic experience are still being updated today.
Crossing boundaries is not the creation of new forms, but the attitude of continually shifting existing perspectives.
