Rethinking Art's Histories- There is No Soundtrack

There is no soundtrack amplifies new and radical audio-visual relationships in experimental media art. It addresses the lack of diversity in the study of art, media and sound through careful audition of marginalised voices that speak of race, gender, sexuality, indigeneity, colonialism, nationalism, violence and the politics of space.

'More like a DJ than an author, Ma connects the sonic dots between film, performance, installation, and so much more. Sound is material to tell stories in space and time, but are our ears more valuable than our eyes?'
Robin Rimbaud (a.k.a. Scanner), composer and artist

'Through a series of close readings and quilt-like juxtapositions, Ming-Yuen Ma thinks sound and art through a broader political field. There is no soundtrack brings the discussion of sound more fully into the study of media art and the discussion of media art more fully into the study of sound art.'
Professor Jonathan Sterne, author of The Audible Past and MP3

There is no soundtrack is a groundbreaking study of the sound tactics deployed in experimental media art, from avant-garde films to performance art, installations, and hybrid forms. Addressing what sound studies scholar Jonathan Sterne calls ‘visual hegemony’, it joins a growing body of interdisciplinary work that is collectively sonifying the study of culture. At the same time, the book challenges the lack of diversity in the field by focusing on practitioners from transnational and minority backgrounds. The media artists under discussion – including Chantal Akerman, Nam June Paik, and Tanya Tagaq – are of interest to scholars and students in related disciplines, from gender and feminist studies to queer studies, postcolonial studies, environmental analysis, and architecture.

Making meaningful connections between previously disconnected bodies of scholarship, There is no soundtrack builds new, more complex and reverberating frameworks for the study of art, media, and sound.

There is no soundtrack is a study of how sound and image produce meaning in contemporary experimental media art by artists ranging from Chantal Akerman to Nam June Paik to Tanya Tagaq. It contextualises these works and artists through key ideas in sound studies: voice, noise, listening, the soundscape and more. The book argues that experimental media art produces radical and new audio-visual relationships challenging the visually dominated discourses in art, media and the human sciences. In addition to directly addressing what Jonathan Sterne calls ‘visual hegemony’, it also explores the lack of diversity within sound studies by focusing on practitioners from transnational and diverse backgrounds. As such, it contributes to a growing interdisciplinary scholarship, building new, more complex and reverberating frameworks to collectively sonify the study of culture.