Discoveries from the past

Luigi Russolo, a famous Futurist painter from Italy, was also considered one of the world’s first experimental noise artists. In the early 20th century, Russolo invented several machines that produced sounds such as factory clamor or gunshots. In his view, the melody of music limited our potential to appreciate complex and dissonant auditory experiences. In 1913, he sought to remedy this with his manifesto The Art of Noises, in which he proposed several new “families of noise” for futurist musicians to draw upon, including explosions, whistles, whispers, screeches and sobs. For his Gran Concerto Futurismo in 1917, Russolo assembled an orchestra of amplified speakers playing cacophonous sounds. He was met with much criticism, but The Art of Noises lives on as one of the most influential musical manifestos of the 20th century.

In 1952, inspired by Zen Buddhism and the Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp, composer John Cage created the famous work 4’33”, consisting of three movements lasting for 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. The performers were not allowed to play any instruments or make any noise. This idea came from Cage’s visit to the anechoic chamber at Harvard University, a room meant to produce total silence. Cage discovered, however, that he could hear a high-pitched sound, which he was later told was his own nervous system. Since there was no absolute silence in the auditorium, the audience was made acutely aware of the sounds from the environment during those 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

Just as John Cage believed in the future of music, his ideas were passed on to the next generation of artists, leading to the emergence of ambient music. After minimalist composers such as Erik Satie emerged in the early 20th century, Cage wanted to create a genre of music that could blend with the noise of everyday life, filling the gaps in space and making it easy for people to immerse themselves in the atmosphere around them.

Since then, many leading artists in the ambient genre have emerged, such as Brian Eno, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Isao Tomita, and have propelled the development of electronic music forward. Today, we can hear ambient music everywhere, such as in exhibition halls, architectural spaces and stores, while many even use it to help fall asleep. Interestingly, 4’33” is considered by some to be the first ambient work because of its emphasis on environmental sound.