# Sound Art (?) on:in Film JULIO D’ESCRIVA´ N **Abstract:** sound artists. Much has been discussed regarding Forbidden Planet (1956) and its ‘electronic tonalities’ by Louis and Bebe Barron, so we will not dwell on this. Although not their first incursion into using electronic music in film, it is the first important and large format instance of electronic sounds being used to complement filmic images instead of traditional music. The sounds conjured by the Barrons oscillate between literal representation and mood setting, thus the distinction between sound effects and musical accompaniment becomes blurred. Just three years later, First Spaceship On Venus (Silent Star), by Kurt Maetzig (1959), employs the same approach to the soundtrack. Composer Andrzej Markowski creates, with synthesised means, the sound of a language which has been codified into a rock found in the Gobi desert. This rock contains a message from outer space and a team of scientists must translate the sounds into something intelligible. Synthesis is used extensively to animate the rock’s message, but this device does not stop there. During the film’s space travel sequences we have these synthetic sounds doubling as sound effects and strange musical ambience. This being a film produced behind the Iron Curtain (an East German and Polish coproduction) it is not certain how much the makers were aware of Forbidden Planet, but the sound treatments are very similar. Since there is hardly anything written on this film, one can only go by an aural impression, so I would sugge