Why be arbitrarily outlandish? Why go out of one’s way to make technology go beyond thresholds of human capability or physiology, away from predictable patterns of speech, phrase, rhythm, pulse, lung capacity, etc., different from the sounds of musical materials to which we are accustomed, outside what is immediately equated with some processed, easily consumed music-sound product? In a word, the answer is art. Inasmuch as an art object can be largely or wholly placed by its recognizable characteristics into easy categories of previously lived phenomena, its power to bring to consciousness some aspect of human experience in a way not possible by other means is diminished; it functions in more of a decorative, diverting, or even harping capacity and less in an artistic one.

Why is this so? There is a connection between what is easily associated with repeated past experience, and what is easily put into words. The mental pathways worn by repetition of experience eventually become paved with language. We as humans are preternaturally disposed to describing with language what we already feel we understand. Applying language to what we feel we do not understand is a taller order, requiring metaphor, analogy or other associative devices. 

This is an entry point for the function of art. To be sure, language can be used as material for the creation of art—as with poetry, literature, theater, etc., but it is the non-linguistic, associative evocation of human experience traceable in the content and organization of constituent materials that makes an object function as art. If art in context is perceived as bringing to consciousness some aspect of human experience in a way not possible by other means, then an object that by its rote associations brings to mind comparatively shallow experiences easily put into words (we jam; we cruise; we dance; we feel cool; we are defiant; we are amorous; we are anxious) cannot as effectively bring to consciousness something otherwise impossible to evoke.

Thus, the capacity of an object to function as art is relative to the lived, describable experience of those addressed by it. The more accustomed the experience of an object, the more banal and easily described are its associated meanings and effects, and the less able it is to bring to consciousness what is inexpressible by other means (on the other hand, art can also bring to consciousness problems with what has become so banal it is hardly noticed). When an object is curious, annoying, puzzling, enlightening, challenging, unsettling, wondrous, or in some way touches on what could not otherwise be answered or described, it functions better as art.

So, one way for an object to reach beyond what can otherwise be expressed, is for its constituent materials and principles of organization to reach beyond what has been customarily experienced. This does not mean the object must be wholly “other.” As with learning, for the challenge of an art object to be meaningful it must exist on a foundation of the known. Its capacity to reach beyond the familiar from a known position also helps make it functional as art.

Because of the relationship between what an art object can bring to consciousness and the experiences to which an addressee is accustomed, pushing the envelope with regard to artistic materials and procedures may be needed for an art object to be most functional as art. It may be necessary to sound what is not customarily heard to make sonic art. This does not mean hearers will automatically choose to explore those objects or their own experiences of listening, probing for human significance, asking what it means. That is the addressee’s part of the artistic equation, and a problem neither art nor artists have complete power to solve. Pushing the envelope in terms of addressees’ probable experience can be a way to challenge their engagement with a musical object, allowing it to bring to consciousness what might be impossible to evoke by other means.