My main takeaway from Yan Juns guest lecture was the idea of a push toward a less serious form of sound art, the idea that much of sound art is taken very seriously and that there is not really room for small and unserious pieces.
I find this idea very interesting, I think that it is an essential part of expanding diversity in sound art. More than just one mood should be aimed for. It’s not that things are restrictive as is necessarily, but there should be the freedom to explore beyond the standard. It feels like this should already be the way of things, from the discussions that were had in the lecture it seemed like people react poorly to unserious or humorous sound art which I think is ridiculous, there should be a total freedom in what is produced.
I definitely fall into the trap of doing very grand and serious pieces but I do try and be ‘smaller’ and on occasion do something I find funny. The most recent example i can think of that I’ve made was a no-input remix of ‘toxic’ by Britney Spears: https://dinas.bandcamp.com/track/toxic-input. This is nothing but joyful and silly, there is no deeper meaning behind it than the foolishness of taking something very ‘artsy’ and putting it to what is usually considered ‘trashy’ or not ‘high art’. I feel combining the two is a really good way to bridge the gap between serious/grand sound art and the more humorous side to things.