In 1956 Murakami Saburō (1925–1996) placed a wall clock in an 80 cm cubic wooden box. This simple gesture, like many of Murakami’s simple artistic gestures, provoked a complex rethinking of the position of the audience in contemporary art and sound’s particular role in that shift. The author takes the process of art handlers unpacking and setting up Work (Box) as a pathway to exploring the acoustic and material encounter with the piece, and the intricacies and implications of its relationship to duration and bodily presence.

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