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Cevdet Erek is a sound artist from Turkey. His work explores our relationships to objects and architecture. An interesting aspect of Erek’s work is that sound is created by the hand, either that of the artist or that of the viewer through interaction with his pieces. For example, in his work Shore Scene Soundtrack, Erek imitates the sound of waves crashing on the shore by rubbing his hands and forearms rhythmically against a large swatch of carpet. In contrast to popular perceptions of new media work, Erek’s sound art actively carries evidence of the human hand, much like in painting or drawing. The artist’s hand, in this case, in a very immediate way creates the artwork. In this way it is a much more analog method for art creation than one might assume from a new media artist. A question for me forms, though, in terms of what the boundary of art is for Erek’s sound pieces. Is it just the sound itself? Are the aesthetics of the carpet of importance? Where does the performative aspect fit in? I’m curious about which frameworks should be used in order to discuss the impact of Erek’s pieces at length.