Namacalna i słyszalna przeciw-historia, czyli pocztówki dźwiękowe Christiny Kubisch

The aim of this article is to analyse A History of Soundcards (1977–1978), a project by the German artist, composer and performer Christina Kubisch (b. 1948), considered to be a leading representative of the first generation of sonic art. Namely, this study examines soundcards (postcards making squeaky noise when pressed) – the unusual audio carriers used by Kubisch in her performances. This text discusses the material dimension of the tool chosen by the artist and its significance as an emancipatory project in the feminist discourse on the 1970s phonography. It combines the observations of the critical history of art (the adaptation of Foucault’s concept of counter-history) and cultural history of sound (ideas related to the ‘material turn’). Kubisch’s work is depicted in the context of the other important audio-visual phenomena of that period such as the famous 48 Portraits by Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) presented in the German pavilion during the 1972 Venice Biennale. Kubisch’s unconventional sonic art appears to be no longer an excluded discipline, largely ignored by art history, but rather emerges as its essential part. Escaping clear-cut classifications, Kubisch’s artistic oeuvre tests the available methodological tools and proves that the visually-centered attitude has lost its validity in the analysis of the contemporary cultural legacy.