Sonic Refuge in Uncertain Times
In these passages, author Peter Maber reviews Feel the Sound, a new art experience at London’s Barbican, for the Times Literary Supplement. But Maber offers more than just a critique of art—his writing not only interprets the exhibit, but also gestures toward the shifting metaphysical realities of our time. The sensory experience of “good vibrations” becomes a mirror for the deeper transformations unfolding in human consciousness, as the installation reflects not just artistic innovation, but the evolving conditions of the world we now inhabit:
“In his 1962 short story The Singing Statues, J. G. Ballard imagined an electronic future for sculpture, in which sonic statues containing ‘senso-cells’ are animated by the vibrations around them. Such a vision, of ‘an incredible sequence of grunting, clanking, barking and twanging sculptures’, responding to human presence, is realized in Feel the Sound at the Barbican, an immersive, multisensory show that aims to ‘expand the potential of listening beyond hearing’. But whereas in Ballard such works are the preserve of the rich, and are manipulated cynically by creators and gallerists to hold up a mirror to collectors’ vanity, the Barbican presents an altogether more egalitarian vision: exhibits respond uniquely to visitors’ engagement, and a central concern is to provide sonic refuge in unstable times.”
Maber’s allusion to Ballard’s vision of “senso-cells” subtly evokes a metaphysical reading that humanity, once animated by a kind of spiritual body—sensitive, resonant, and attuned to presence—has long buried this reality beneath layers of cynicism, elitism, and materialism. In Ballard’s imagined world, these spiritually “animated” forms are reserved for the wealthy, manipulated by curators and collectors as mere status symbols. It’s as if, after the collapse of the Athenian republic in 322 BC, the higher truths of the soul—the metaphysical “vibrations” that once animated public life were driven underground. But Feel the Sound, as Maber puts it, seeks to reverse that suppression. By opening this metaphysical sensibility to all, the exhibit gestures toward a more egalitarian future one where art reawakens a deeper, shared resonance within the human spirit, offering sonic refuge in an increasingly unstable world.
“Resonance Continuum, by the transmedia collective Elsewhere in India, consists of a large screen filled by a temple-like structure displaying ancient South Asian imagery and gateways that open when we participate in a thousand-year-old Sindh tradition of ringing a cowbell, representative of ‘the universe’s foundational rhythm’. Masked humanoid automata step forward, standing in for ‘the sentient beings who brought music to India millennia ago’, and we are directed to assume dance poses. If our poses are correct, the beings will copy us and Indian music will play; if we fail, the music stops and the beings retreat behind their gates. Are we leading them or they us? Whether or not we attempt to partake in this reinvention of cultural traditions is entirely down to our individual choice, and perhaps that forms part of the stated aim of producing a ‘decolonized, hopeful vision of the future’.”
Maber, Peter. “Good Vibrations.” The Times Literary Supplement, May 10, 2024. https://www.the-tls.com/arts/audio/feel-the-sound-arts-review-peter-maber.
