Alcina Cortez, investigadora do INET-md, é autora do artigo “Decoding the meanings of the sound art installation The Visitors by Kjartansson“, publicado em acesso aberto pelo International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media (Routledge/Taylor&Francis Group).
Resumo (apenas em inglês):
As museums increasingly recognize the importance of intangible cultural heritage, they have begun to meaningfully address musical themes in exhibitions. The shift toward visitor-centered approaches has acknowledged music as a powerful medium for audience engagement. Consequently, both curators and visitors show growing interest in sound art, creating a need for deeper understanding of sound’s role and meaning within museum contexts. This study examines how Ragnar Kjartansson’s sound art installation-work The Visitors, exhibited at the SFMoMA as part of the Soundtracks exhibition (2017–18), creates meaning through its integration of music, filmic imagery, and spatial elements. Through multimodal analysis and visitor interviews, I demonstrate how the installation represents music as a participatory experience, which is best conceptualized by Small’s (1998) concept of musicking – understanding music as an activity rather than merely an object. I also situate the installation within sound art discourse, examining how it extends and challenges existing practices within this evolving field. My analysis of The Visitors supports two conclusions: the exhibition of music can achieve museum studies and practice’s goals of a deeper visitor engagement; the installation work proves to be an effective representation of musicking and thus, an appealing instantiation of music studies knowledge displayed in a museum [Q4].