In Soundings, Gary Hill does not make use of sophisticated sound techniques, as he did with feedback in Glass Onion and Black / White / Text, for example. He uses normal production methods, on the one hand the loudspeaker and, on the other hand, the most archaic process possible: the sound produced by the action. The sound games are integrated into the framework of video through the relationships created between the sounds, the images and the spoken text. The sound heard does not trigger any free mental representations since each sequence shows, live, how the sound is produced. The monologue refocuses the spectator's thoughts on the image by describing the performance, and each sequence refers us back to the sound by showing the vibration of the membrane when the voiceover comes out of the loudspeaker, bringing together the text, the image and the sound in a common fact. The text introduces other concepts regarding sound: positions in space, narration, tone, scrambling, etc.

The six sequences propose a play on cultural and acoustic resonances; along with variations on the status of the loudspeaker as an object. The manipulations become increasingly violent, progressing from fingers caressing the membrane to its destruction by fire. The analogue reproduction of the sound by the loudspeaker uses the air. Gary Hill successively adds three other elements: sand (representing earth), water and fire. The touch introduces the idea of skin while the text simultaneously evokes it as a limit in our relationship with others. The sand and water transform the voice, muffling the sound and highlighting its physical laws. The sequence with the sand was reworked and isolated in another video entitled Mediations in 1986. The nailing of the object superimposes the voiceover broadcast by the loudspeaker and the environmental sound resulting from the action. Finally, the membrane is paradoxically burned, revealing more about the nature of the material than any sound.

The content of the tape is visually complex, describing the manipulations and revealing formalist work on the image incorporated in contemporary creation. The loudspeaker is inserted in ochre and pink monochromes. Frames made up of grey dashes on a black background are reminiscent of the problems examined by modernism and postmodernism: the grid and its deconstruction. Finally, the phrase written on a pink background evokes Process Art by detailing the process in the work. Soundings models sound in a language drawn from the plastic arts.

Thérèse Beyler