Sound and Documentary in Cardiff and Miller's 'Pandemonium'
Welcome to the digital companion to my master's thesis completed spring 2015 in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, College Park. At the heart of my project is a site-specific sound installation - Pandemonium - that occupied the Eastern State Penitentiary historic site in Philadelphia from 2005 through 2007.
- Chapter 1 introduces the artwork, its site, its makers, and existing interpretations in print.
- Chapter 2 investigates Pandemonium's relationship to music and to sound art.
- Chapter 3 situates Pandemonium, and Cardiff's audio walk Words Drawn in Water (2005), in the trompe l'oeil realist tradition and in dialogue with documentary-related practices in contemporary art, and finally offers some conclusions.
I built this site primarily because sound art deserves a format suitable for listening as well as for looking and reading. Further, I prefer to offer an accessible, informal, and flexible experience of my research. This site is, in other words, an experiment - an active and ongoing one - that will evolve in dialogue with users. I welcome your questions, suggestions, and critical feedback.