(Un)censorship and sound art

Abstract

There seems to be a shortage of instances—if there is any—where sound art has been censored. This becomes puzzling and poses some questions, aside from what exactly is sound art and what exactly is censorship, one might wonder if sound art can be censored. There is, certainly, a myriad of artistic modalities and works that have been censored in many ways, nonetheless, to find specific cases of sound art targeted with censorship is not an easy task. On this account, there is a lack of literature studying the relation between the concepts of sound art and censorship. Art and censorship have had a long-standing relationship and yet, this is insufficient to form a clear understanding of the mechanics of either, particularly their ways of operating. To look at this relationship between censorship and sound art—a very recent artistic practice historically speaking—is necessary in order to discuss whether sound art is susceptible to censorship. This research proposes to form a conceptual framework to allow a better framing of the problematic and the question of investigation itself, consequently raising a set of more relevant questions that allow us to explore this issue in a more reliable way. In order to further understand how this could be achieved, this research relied primarily on the literature review and later, on the meanings and interventions of multiple participants with artistic involvement and experience to assemble and form that very same conceptual framework. This group of participants was confronted with the question of investigation, discussed the problematic and ultimately gathered a set of questions and possible future approaches on how this investigation should proceed.

Date of Award	12 Sept 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Alberto Gomes (Supervisor)