Hearing | Art and the Senses

DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER

MoMA

How does the sense of hearing trigger our imagination? And what role does that play in art?

To try to answer these questions, we traveled to rural British Columbia to visit artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Partners in art and life, they seek to transport their audiences through installations, objects, and interactive works that center sound, including the powerful "The Forty Part Motet (A reworking of “Spem in Alium,” by Thomas Tallis 1556)" from 2001.

When Cardiff first heard a recording of one of the most complex pieces of choral music, “Spem in alium nunquam habui (In no other is my hope),” by Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis, she knew immediately that she wanted to create an installation in the round, in which the recording would play from forty speakers, each an individual voice. Viewers would experience a performance in an unexpectedly intimate, physical way, choosing to listen closely to a single singer or tracing the ambitious composition in harmony as they move around the space.

In this latest episode of our new Art and the Senses series, the artists and MoMA Media Conservator Peter Oleksik describe how installing the piece in different settings over two decades has unleashed an unexpected emotional resonance, and led to discoveries about how sound interacts with space.

“I got a note yesterday from somebody who had to stop the car on the way home after hearing Forty Part Motet because he said he started crying. He started thinking about joy, and how he didn't have enough joy in his life,” explained Cardiff. “I think that’s the power of sound working.”