A New Paragon


'Paul Panhuysen Paul Panhuysen

A lecture written on occasion of the third Audio Arts Symposium Sept. 1988

The subject of this lecture is the position and meaning of Sound Art within the context of the sciences and the arts. Starting from the ideas of Leonardo da Vinci, who may be considered one of the first modern artists and one of the first sound artists as well, Paul Panhuysen will demonstrate how modern art during the last two centuries lost its rank among the sciences and lost most of its territory and lost all its meaning with postmodernism. His conviction is that artists will have to go back to the roots of modern art, which originally claimed its place among the sciences. Both the sciences and the arts are knowledge arranged in an orderly manner. The sciences and the arts are complementing each other, each other's counterparts. If the artists continue to content themselves with the production of commodities, the arts will return to trade and craft and to the Middle Ages. A dangerous perspective not only for the arts, but for mankind too.

The artists will have to be aware of the actual state of the sciences in order to be able to create meaningful art. Sound art cannot be considered as a specific category of the arts. It is just another option for an artist, a subject of interest among many other subjects. Sound art belongs to the arts and sciences from the early beginning of modern art. Sound art is as old as modern art is. It is an orderly manner to arrange knowledge and to link up again the sciences and the arts.
June 1988