Why Is So Much Sound Art So Bad?

“Duchamp was a genius. He could put a noise in a ball of string and hey presto, it was art. He made it look easy – well, he made everything look easy – and yet many daft and self-indulgent sound works are only “art” at the most glib level as sadly exposed by the National Gallery’s exhibition Soundscapes last summer, in which only Philipsz rose above the banal.”