Telephones by Christian Marclay

Christian Marclay's film, Telephones, is a unique undertaking of making a collage of sounds that are everyday in nature, but create a musical sound through editing. For me, personally, the sound throughout the film works constantly, never hitting a dull moment due to the fact that each clip and individual sound are tightly woven into a vignette of telephones ringing. Through Marclay's meticulous use of pacing and editing, he creates a distinct and poignant musical soundtrack with each ring practically on top of the next. He also makes a point to duplicate similar sounds with different phones, moving up and down and pitch but eventually coming full circle to sounds we have already heard. I feel that this specifcally is what makes the piece work as a unique collection of sounds. Marclay, however, pushes it even further when he moves from phones to voices of people answering the ringing phones. This is not quite as musical as the phones ringing. Each voice is uniquely different in pitch and tone, yes, but they do not all meld together as a piece of music. In the interview that Glenn presented regarding Aaron Ximm, Ximm comments on the idea of sound collage as music when he says, "In such work there is a gratuitous display of craft and a love of purely sensory pleasures that I believe is out of fashion in the 'serious' art world" (Ximm 39). Overall, Marclay's piece finds its window in arousing the senses, obviously the sense of sound particularly, which makes for an unexpected, yet exciting viewing experience.