Definitions can be problematic. Pinning art works to definitions of context is by its nature reductive. As Max Neuhaus says, a term like sound art is like calling art made with steel ‘steel art’[1].
Interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, cross-art form, are all terms we use when we try to make sense of what happens when the arts begin to merge. When the arts begin to merge identity, as happened throughout the past century, the breaking down of the barriers between art forms can open up new hybrids.
When, as artists, our fascinations extend beyond the borders of our territory we can become like invaders in foreign lands, trespassing on hard-won respect, like strangers lacking the necessary language to describe what we do. The borders we build around the territories of art are illusions. The history of art from the past one hundred years can teach us that it is in the dismantling of borders that art can flourish, be renewed and regenerated.
[1] Max Neuhaus, Volume: Bed of Sound, (New York: P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, 2000).