Date :
19.12.2014 - 19.1.2015

Location :
Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre

Time :
Exhibition: Mon-Sun 12pm - 8pm (Closed on Public Holiday)

Media Preview

19.12.2014, 17:00

Opening Ceremony

19.12.2014, 19:00

L3, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre

Performance

20 & 21.12.2014, 19:30

M1060 Multimedia Theatre, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre

Free Admission

Curator: Dajuin Yao

“RPM: Sound Art China” curated by Chinese sound art pioneer Yao Dajuin, is a touring exhibition that re-counts and re-examines the development of “sound art” in various Chinese communities in the last decade. The theme of this exhibition “RPM (revolution per minute)” refers to the speed of rotation of gramophones – the physical media that carry sound. To a large extent, the progress of “sound art” in China has been made possible through the playback of these sonic objects. RPM also refers to the speed of historical progress, i.e., the extreme speed at which the supposedly foreign concept of “sound art” has taken hold in China over the past ten years.

The Hong Kong stop of this touring exhibition will feature works by over 20 artists from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Chinese diaspora. This exhibition is accompanied by a two-day mini-fest of sound art performances.

PERFORMANCE

Day 1:

Zafka+J Fever, Vvzela Kook, Zhang You-sheng, Xu Cheng, RMBit

Day 2:

Wang Changcun, Vvzela Kook, Jiang Zhuyun, Edwin Lo, RMBit

EXHIBITION

Curatorial Statement:

From the introduction of the concept of sound art about a decade ago to the present moment when such a colorful sound art exhibition can be shown to the public, sound art in China has come a long way. We could say that we have completed, or compressed, in a mere decade the entire series of sonic revolutions that took the West one hundred years to run its course (since the Futurist manifesto “The Art of Noises” of 1913).

The “Revolutions Per Minute” series is a survey of contemporary sonic art in the Chinese communities as well as a search for cutting-edge sensibilities in sonic practices. The formats covered are wide-ranging, from silent conceptual sound art to engaging interactive installations, from dazzling audio-visual live performances to the pervasive audio social media.

But sound art in this region is far from just another version, or a knock-off  of sound art as defined by and practiced in the West. In stark contrast to sound art in the Western and other Asian countries, where sound for sound’s sake, fascination with mechanical, physical, algorithmic and nature sounds are prevalent  concerns, we see in Chinese sound art a distinct, unmistakable, and, dare we say, Confucian obsession with the human world, a humanistic or social theme running throughout. The current craze of audio social media in China (Weixin, PaPa) sits at the crux of this phenomenon and may very well signal a nationwide awakening of the “sonic self” in addition to the much needed auditory sensitivity. In direct opposition to the denial of the humanistic as seen, for example, in the pursuit of pure nature sounds in Western “acoustic ecology” phonography or the visualization of physicalproperties of sound in numerous gallery installations, is the Chinese celebration of the domain of the human affairs, the non-utopian, the this-worldly, the interpersonal, the personal, the bodily, the vocal.

Furthermore, it may be enlightening to see these recent developments of sound art in China as an extension of one of the oldest and most important heritages in world auditory culture, where ancient Chinese made a direct link between sound and the wider realms of cosmology, astrology, philosophy, politics, and ethics. In other words, “Chinese sound art” is only a tiny, albeit significant, part of Chinese auditory culture, the recognition of which may lead us to more fruitfulviews of the current state as well as the future of sound art.

Daijuin Yao, Curator

Director, Open Media Lab, China Academy of Art

Artworks:

(1) Liquid Borders #4 (2012-2014) by Samson Young

Graphical notation (ink and color pencil on paper), sound composition, annotated catography

Hong Kong and Mainland China are physically separated by a great wall of wired fencing and bodies of water. South to the border are restricted zones known as the “Frontier Closed Area.” Entry into the Frontier Closed Area without an official permit is strictly forbidden. In October 2005, the then Chief Executive Donald Tsang announced a proposal to drastically reduce the Frontier Closed Area. In February 2012, 740 hectares of land were initially opened up. The artist visited all of the restricted zones along the Hong Kong-China border over a period of two years. He set out to collect the sounds that form the audio divide separating Hong Kong and the Mainland, assembling a body of recordings that are comprised mainly of vibrating fence wires captured by contact microphones, and running water from the Shenzhen River gathered by hydrophones. He re-arranged these recordings into sound compositions, and then transcribed these compositions into graphical notations.

(2) The Sound of Social Media (2013) by Dajuin Yao

iPad application

With the new Chinese social  media  platform “PaPa,” one can post a picture together with  a sound recording. With millions of active users, PaPa is the most fascinating window to the sonic China.It is also a platform carrying the largest collective production, exchange and consumption of what Pierre Schaeffer calls “sound objects.” The significance of these audio social media platforms (such as PaPa, Weixin, and Talkbox) in the Chinese society cannot be emphasized enough, for they are triggering an auditory discovery of “the self” for the general population (similar to Lacan’s theory of the “mirror stage”). Without our realizing it, these auditory social media are teaching us how to listen, which will prove to be historically and socially significant in the long run.

You are welcome to explore the PaPa app, also try taking a photo then record some sound and share it with millions of users in China.Have fun and be cre­ative!

(3) Model A – Model H (2013) by Xu Cheng

Sound installation

Originally a part of “Logic/Error” done in collaboration with media artist Xu Zhe, this work is a parody on logic and error. The artist employs four ready-made sound toys manufactured in the city of Yiwu (Zhejiang Province) as source material, and, short of destroying the toys, interferes with and interrupts their normal sound making algorithm in order to observe the sonic possibilities. A Yiwu Toy Quartet is born.

(4) Sound Library (2013-curent) by soundpocket

Online sound database

The Sound Library by soundpocket is a website of sounds that tell stories about our culture and our society in Hong Kong. It aims at creating a community of active listeners who are curious about listening as a way of knowing ourselves and each other. It also aims at contributing to our public culture of listening.

(5) Offset (2012-2014) by Shi Zheng

Audio-visual

Shi Zheng had been working on “Offset – Virtual Terrain” since 2012. It followed the creation of “Flaneur in a Virtual Land,” which is a series of digital prints. Both of these works were creating using a digital images generating software. Softwares and operating systems are environments that are plagued with symbols. Here, Shi took the position of a photographer and a rover. He “filed” virtual scenes, and added granularized noises to the virtual soundscape that accompanied these scenes.

(6) What’s in Your Suitcase? (2008) by Wenhua Shi

Interactive sound installation

The digital storytelling of Wenhua Shi is an exercise in psychogeography – tapping into individual narratives to illustrate a landscape composed of more than just geographical and economic vectors. Digitally capturing the travel stories of various people he encounters in his daily routine, Shi allows gallery visitors to rendezvous with strangers at random, as if they were in a train station or airport.

The audience is invited to place different suitcase models onto the sensor area in order to trigger the playback of different narratives.

(7) A Study on the Kinetics of Mandarin Tones (1997) by Dajuin Yao

Animated concrete poetry

An early animated concrete poem originally created and shown as an net art work, in which an absurd and comical series of Mandarin words having the same tones but unrelated meanings appear in rhythmic sequence,using the earliest and crudest animation format for the web,GIF. Even though the work functions incomplete silence, in the mind of a Chinese viewer or anyone who understands Mandarin, that silence is actually filled with continuously moving tones, melodies, rhythms, signifier and the signified. This work is also an experiment on the mysteri­ous phenomenon of mental hearing, and the transmission of sound and tones through purely visual and mental means.

(8) Mutists (2014) Hangzhou Sound Unit (Qiu Chuangwei, Lu Ziming, Li Jun, Gan Tian, Baolingyi)

Three screen video with sound

Five performers “mime” processed concrete sounds with their mouth. Some say that sounds imitate our mouths. Our performance stops this hearsay. The mutual massaging between the sounds and the faces created poignancy for the short silences.

(9) In Between the Art of Sophism of C.Y.Leung, What Can We Listen? (2014) by Edwin Lo

Sound installation, text, graphical notation

The title of this work originated from a speech given by C.Y. Leung during the time of the Moral and National Education debate in Hong Kong. This work attempts to see C.Y. Leung as an auditory phenomenon. By listening contextually to his speeches, the work proposes a pure listening experience that focuses on the sonic details of his voice,such as his way of speaking, the silence and the pauses. Rather than listening for meanings and emotions, pure listening conveys different auditory scenes. How­ever, is it really possible for one to “simplify” the listening of political sonic objects, and to focus only on the perception of sonic details? This probably remains one of the main challenges of this work.

(10) Parasitic Life / Sound (2013) by Zhang Anding (Zafka) , J-Fever

Website, text, sound recordings

Parasitic Life I Sound is the first work from Zafka’s “Everyday Life Alchemy: Sound Imagination, Sound Writing and Self-Revision” series, which began in 2013. The aim of the project is to reflect upon, reimagine and rebuild daily occurances through smart-phone sound recordings, improvisational “sound writings,” recitation of these writings, and sound performance. Zafka invited his friend, renowned freestyle artist and musician J-Fever, to collaborate with him in this work. From 6th Mar. to 6th Apr. 2013, they recorded clips of daily activities via an app called ‘Spy Voice.’ At the end of each day they would upload these recordings onto their own Tumblr pages.They visited each other’s pages, and then responded with improvisational “sound-writing” based on a first-person perspective, interpreting the recorded clips as if these were their own recordings. These text would then be uploaded back to the original Tumblr, to be placed alongside the original sound clip, for the original artist and visitors to read.

The Tumblr pages of this work: http://spyvoiceleft.tumblr.com 

(11) Ensemble for Wounded Producer (2014) by Kandala Records (Chang Yousheng)

Sound recording

The defacing of the surface of a CD as means to sonic intervention is not a new idea. Works that employ this approach, such as Yasunao Tone’s “wounded CD,” are already familiar to us. So what happens if we perform the same act but under a different title, with a different artist, and in a different time? This is especially interesting if accomplished from the perspective of a record label / record producer.

(12) Encode (2014) by Jasper Fung

Sound installation (stainless steel plate, fire alarm, electronics)

This work consists of a hacked fire alarm and images of newspaper printed on a stainless steel plate. The stainless steel plate is connected to the fire alarm through electrical wiring, which forms a closed circuit. The fire alarm plays percussive patterns that are essential Morse code. These Morse code are derived from keywords from the social media Weibo that had been censored by the government of the People’s Republic of China.

(13) Sound of Temperature (2005) by Jiang Zhuyun

Sound performance art (video documentation)

Description of the performance: the artist sat outside half-naked on an extremely cold day. Contact microphones amplified the sounds of his heartbeat and also his chattering teeth. Sound and temperature are similar in that they can be felt but cannot be seen. They fill spaces and envelope our bodies. The speed of sound is also affected by temperature. The parallel between sound and temperature is the point of departure for this work.

(14) Singing to the Sky (2014) by Wenhua Shi

Interactive sound installation

Poems without words, Words without meaning.

Singing to the Sky (Patterns) is inspired by Raoul Hausmann’s 1946 sound poem recording bbb+fmsbw. It focuses on the phonetic aspect of voice and speech through recognizing three universal vowels (ee, oh, aa) in the human voice. The piece invites the audience to construct their own sound poems and phonetic experiences by howling, speaking, crying, hemming, singing, reading, roaring, and screaming the three vowels. Those sound bites create a string of three vowels projected in Chinese characters through a variety of patterns.

Research Assistant: Sak Lee

(15) Waterfall (2013) by Wang Changcun

Sound installation (television sets, stainless steel, electronics)

I have very little knowledge about waterfalls. I have seen some a few times, some small ones, got nothing, no inspiration punch or even scratch. After blank staring, the word “waterfall” left me soon. Years later, I heard an unrecognizable sound when cleaning up field recordings. There was date in the file name, except that there was nothing, no notes, no memory, a bare sound file. It bothered me, why did I record this noise? Where did it come from? Why did it squash into my field recordings folder and behave like a sound? These questions bother me so much that I’d like to share them to you. Hope they could bother you too, and that may make me feel better.

(16) Twice-Cooked Pork (2013) by Weng Wei, YE Cong

Interactive audio-visual installation (mixer, video, monitor speakers)

“Twice-cooked pork” is a famous dish from Sichuan. Here we appropriate the meaning of “twice-cooked” into our sound installation, utilizing the electronic medium  to “twice-cook” or to revive ancient calligraphy and spoken language. The projection is The Thousand Characters by calligrapher Ouyang Xun (of the Tang Dynasty). We might have thought that this ancient dialect is gone, but the fact is that we are not able to distinguish between the new and the ancient. Even If we were able to create a controlled environment for listening, there is no denying that the contemporary ears had already been desensitized. In this work an ancient dialect becomes material for sound mixing and composition, language is deprived of its symbolic and semantic meanings.

We wish to give the audience a new experience of the ancient Chinese language with our mixer design. The audience are invited to play with the mixer on display. (Please keep the sliders in the silent, center position when you are done.)

(17) Sing for Her (2013) by Zheng Bo

Participatory multimedia system

The work was created with the support of several Filipino domestic helper activist groups in Hong Kong. The song used in this interactive installation is O Ilaw (Oh Light), a serenade popular in the Philippines in the 1930s and 1940s. It is believed that the song also carried the message that the Filipino people should “wake up from sleep” and see the lament of their country, which was under American occupation. The video used in the karaoke was recorded in Central, Hong Kong with members of UNIFIL, IPC Choir and LIKHA.

The English translation of O Ilaw

O, light, in the cold night
You’re like a star in the sky
O, light, in the quiet night
Your picture, Neneng,
makes one hurt. Oh!

Awake and arise
from slumber
from your sleep
so deep.
Open your window and
look out to me
So that you may understand
my true lament.

My deep gratitude to the singers :

Sol Pillas of UNIFIL
Jovy Uy
Vangie Bustamante
Chona Gadil
Donalyn Calantoc Dele Rosa
Marlyn Aljas
Bella Cariaga
Reena Marrie Tabingo
Nenita Reutotar
Gemma Florido
Rosita Javier
Elnie Aguillar
Danajean Rosendo
Analiza Bellosillo of IPC Choir
Shiela Tebia
Lhea Gatchalian
Darna Jacob
Yeng Redita
Lalyn Lopez
Karen Garcia
Reja Barona
Mary Garcia
Marilyn Arangco
Elgen Omahoy
Cheryl Perocho
Maribel Zarco
Gloria Dee
Tin Adolfo
Delia Dableo
Cita Mallen of LIKHA

(18) Garden of Buddhahood (2013/2014) by Dajuin Yao

Sound installation

For decades, the artist has been fascinated by the element of spirituality in sound and music. This work is an exploration in the spirituality of sound and how it can transform an ordinary, utilitarian space. Using a matrix of commer­cially available electronic Buddhist lamps with audio chips, the work also pokes creative fun at the mass-produced mass-religion, or, more precisely, mass-superstition. In addition, the installation is also a sonic reference to Steve Reich’s early process art works such as “Come Out.”

---

All the programmes are free of charge and open to public.

Programmes details are subject to change, please check the website for update.

轉速 : 中國聲音藝術大展

策展人: 姚大鈞

「轉速：中國聲音藝術大展」由中國聲音藝術先鋒姚大鈞策展，以巡迴展覽的形式展現過去十年各地華人社區的「聲音藝術」發展面貌，並加以重新審視。是次展覽的主題名為「轉速」，意指唱片每分鐘的轉速，而唱片正是聲音的有形載體。在很大程度上，「聲音藝術」能夠在中國有所發展，也借助這類聲音媒體的播放。「轉速」當然也關乎歷史發展，從中揭示「聲音藝術」這種一向被視為外來的概念，近十年來如何在中國落地生根。

在巡迴展覽香港站重點推介的20多位聲音藝術家，來自中國內地、台灣、香港，以及其他國際華人社區。展覽期間，並舉辦為期兩天的聲音藝術小型演藝節。

傳媒預覽

2014年12月19日下午5時

開幕典禮

2014年12月19日晚上7時
九龍塘達康路18號邵逸夫創意媒體中心3樓

表演

2014年12月20日及21日晚上7時半
九龍塘達康路18號邵逸夫創意媒體中心地下M1060多媒體劇院

第一晚表演:

張安定、小老虎﹑曲倩雯﹑張又升﹑徐程﹑人民比特

第二晚表演:

王長存﹑曲倩雯﹑蔣竹韻﹑羅潤庭﹑人民比特

展覽

2014年12月19日至2015年1月19日
星期一至星期日(公眾假期休息) 中午12時至晚上8時
九龍塘達康路18號邵逸夫創意媒體中心3樓CMC Gallery

藝術家:

楊嘉輝
姚大鈞
徐程
聲音掏腰包
施政
史文華
Mutists
羅潤庭
張安定 / Zafka
張又升
馮俊彥
史文華
王長存
翁巍 / 葉叢
鄭波

以上節目全部免費入場

節目詳情如有變動, 以網站上的公佈為準, 敬請留意。