Rapporti tra opera e fruitore nelle origini dell’installazione sonora (1900–1966)

One feature that defines sound installation as a genre is the participa- tion of the user. Upon entering the space of a work, the user assumes an active role. Thereby the work takes on a theatrical and formative dimension: an art initially defined through space reveals its temporal- ity. This essay analyzes the theatrical dimension, that is, the “modal structure,” of works up to 1967, the first period of the sound installa- tion genre. Both interactive and non-interactive works are considered. The analysis shows various models of theatricality for the first years of the genre, during which a diversity of origins and genealogy is re- flected. What is common to these experiments is that they seek to in- volve the viewers, a strategy whose roots lie in the aesthetics and ex- periments of the first half of the twentieth century, but which since 1955 has become conspicuous.