Tanaka Atsuko’s Work (Bell) from 1955 is an important and layered work that pre-figures the genre of sound art. Part of its complexity lies in the fact that there is no “original” version, and that the artist executed several iterations over several decades, remaining true to the work’s core identity but varying its specific materiality and thereby emphasizing its situational nature. At the experiential level, the complexity of the work includes issues of agency, rupture, sonic architectonics, and transhistorical interpretation. The author responds to artist Shiraga Fujiko’s concise and insightful firsthand account of her 1955 encounter with the work as a foundation to address these and other meanings and implications of Work (Bell).
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2024
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