""Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies" invites renewed attention to the intersections and influences of video and sound, focusing on recently made works by some of the most important voices in contemporary art today. Music is more than a formal element in these works; it is a framework through which artists understand the histories and traditions that inspire them. All privilege music as a means to explore individual and collective experiences of the United States and to connect with their audiences. Their use of musical thinking encompasses subjects and concepts, processes and production modes, and intentions for how the work will be received and experienced by music fans of all kinds. The media works presented in "Musical Thinking" are all drawn from the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. These transformative additions bring the museum's time-based art collection firmly into the 21st century, while extending a core insight recognizable in SAAM's earlier holdings - that music lent much to the development of media art. Thanks to these new acquisitions, SAAM can now trace this relationship across nearly 100 years of American art history"-- Provided by publisher.