Sound Art: Liza Nogovitsyna on a New Way of Perceiving the World

Hi everyone! Welcome to issue 27 of our #ourstudents series — a series of interviews where students talk about themselves and their art.

For this issue I sat down with Liza Nogovitsyna — a sound artist and composer from Kirov.

Tell us how you came to contemporary art, and why you chose sound art in particular.

I came into contemporary art from music, expanding the boundaries of my practice. I became curious: why wasn’t I recording the sounds around me, why wasn’t I using them in my tracks? Do I have to limit myself to a single acoustic instrument? How do you connect the visual and the sonic parts of life? These questions gradually led me to sound art.

How do you assess and feel the situation within contemporary art in relation to sound art? Are enough venues open to working with it? Does sound art still raise more questions for venues about realising such projects, or do you feel completely comfortable as a sound artist?

Sound art is getting a lot of attention right now, especially in big cities, where venues and artists are looking for extra ways to “immerse” and affect the viewer. We have a more or less stable list of institutions where sound art can exist (thanks to their curatorial approach and technical equipment). I think things are much better now than they were 7–10 years ago. But it is hard for me to speak about that time, because back then I wasn’t interested in the question.

I feel comfortable among people who don’t know and want to find out. After all, in my city the phrase “sound art” is still a novelty, so by now the definition comes out in a single breath. Sometimes I just call it music or sound design. What matters is that the person grasps that it is sound. Maybe the rest isn’t so important?

Nobody can know everything — and that’s fine.

Can you tell us more about your most significant projects so far?

Sound labs at ARTEMOFF FEST (Uryupinsk, Volgograd) and at the “Dacha Tsaritsyno” festival (Moscow).

The “Out into the City” residency in Samara, run by MMOMA in partnership with the Tretyakov Gallery.

My first exhibition, “Call Me, Call Me,” put together after the Samara residency, and opening my own space, TSI “Emergency Exit” in Kirov (TSI stands for contemporary art point).

How do audiences react to your sound art projects? Do you meet incomprehension, or rather more curiosity?

I have a great audience, and I really like older people who are curious about new things. And there are plenty of them! At the start I thought my audience would be young people under 25. But in practice, mature people pay far more attention to what surrounds them. They have seen a lot, but heard very little attentively.

And by mature people I mean, as a rule, anyone from 40 to infinity.

What is your mission in art? What are you interested in exploring?

I try not to set missions as such; this past year showed me how much energy it takes to “follow your mission.” I just want to make great art, find my own language and communicate through it. To connect and convey visual experience through sound, and to understand that mechanism.

How is sound art different from sound design for you?

They are different tasks. More precisely, sound art can pose absolutely any question and explore any theme. Sound design is pure sound; it cares only about the sound itself and its effect.

Sound art contains plenty of elements of sound design — from techniques to approach — yet sound art is hardly a part of sound design, nor does it particularly serve it. This is a subject of debate among musicians and everyone who works with sound. There are many opinions but no settled position. Sound Studies is a new field that deals with the theoretical questions. Our art form is only a century old, so a lot of things are still at the stage of reflection and observation.

How can a person engage with sound works? What would you recommend for a deeper immersion?

It’s great to listen several times or stand there a bit longer, try to find the logic of the sound or the action, and then simply give yourself over to the experience and think about nothing. There is a lot of variety in our genre; there is no single set of instructions. Only one thing remains: predict nothing and expect nothing.

What advice would you give to those who want to try working with sound?

Work. Study theory and art in general, beyond sound. And then work some more. Make a lot. Try a lot.

Was studying on our program useful for you?