Sound Art in China and Speech Art

As a student studying sound art, it is important to do recording and notice the sound around, but also it is important to know about the artist in this 'NEW' field (for me).

It is a great chance to meet a famous Chinese Sound Artist Da-juin Yao in a public lecture. At first, I think he is a cool person that people are afraid of (maybe it is also a kind of respect! XD). However, it is not the case and he is a nice person and very patient to answer our questions and comments. So, that makes a lecture becomes more informal talk.

He explained and discussed about the trend and history of how Chinese people listen and record what they have heard. Also, we always just study the Chinese instruments on the history perspective. But how they are making sound? We seems has less discussion on this nowadays but the ancient Chinese did a lot.

Nowadays, how does Chinese sound art develop? Dajuin says Chinese sound art has a different directions from the Western. One is the sound installation. Another one is about speech art which I think it is also a very new area of creation. Chinese sound artists have now more interests and recording on human dialog, including content and emotions of someone speaking. There is no script reading out or it is not about narration but a 'low-tech.', no editing and direct recording of sound.

I cannot upload anything for reference in this entry for the copyright issue. Instead, I think this talk has given me some new directions and insightful analysis of the sound art creation in nowadays China for my sound art making.

Meaning of Noise

Noise is all around us and we usually ignore them, like the loud conversations on phone, children crying, playing and so on.

But somehow, some of the sounds have meaning and we usually still ignore them. During this period, it is the time of the SU and affiliated society elections. CityU and other universities have the traditions that all the proposed societies yelling out slogans to attract people's attention. And all of these sounds are interesting that what they are yelling is just like they will having a fight (if you don't know Cantonese, although they are fighting to win in the elections!) or a demonstration. The sounds make people feel annoying and some people hate it.

Although we have the above feelings, still their sounds are very interesting that there are full of emotions. To some extent, they are successfully attracted us but the noisy messages are not communicated well to the voters. Of course, they are producing Low-fi sound which is so messy and people cannot really catch up what they are yelling. After hearing the following recording, sounds become Hi-fi and the messages are more clear by hearing them in headphone.

http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sunnychan2/society_yelling.mp3

Silence 2

There is a very well-known secret MTR platform in Sheung Wan which is not everyone know about it. Also, there is not everyone know about its history. So, once I know about this, I go there to find out if there is any special sound can be found in this area.

This platform formerly is for a station called Rumsey Station which is an interchange station for a rail line like the proposed Sha Tin-Central Line and the Island Line of MTR. However, there is some reasons like the suspension of building Western Island Line and the conflicts on the railway operations. So, the platform is being emptied.

Somebody says there seems to be some strange things happened and also as it is so quiet that makes people think there may be some mysterious things behind. So, I decided to do a sound walk while I went to visit a gallery. There is no strange sounds. But as it is not a busy platform. The sound that we might not noticed in our daily life are very clearly heard, like the sound of the escalators, people walking etc. And there is full of air-conditioning machine sound which makes me feel a little bit cold. The whole soundscape can also described as cold and Low-fi as well.

Silence

I am so impressed by John Cage's project on silence. His work 4'33" makes me thinking a lot, especially one question: is there really any absolute silence?

I should say NO! Otherwise, I should say the piece is recorded by a not working recorder. It is because the air sound and some unwanted sound will still in a work. So, absolute silence can just happened in a vacuum. Silence can just consider as something that is trying to stop and not to make sound.

I have done a similar performance at Tsim Sha Tsui. And I think silence can be a way to be concentrated ourselves to hear what's happening around and can be a source of our work. Let's take a look / listen (i.e. appreciate by closing your eyes after you have clicked play) in order to to feel how noisy the weekend TST is.

My intention studying Sound Art

I would like to share with you why I would like to choose to take Sound Art course. I studied music when I was a primary school student and also during my secondary and tertiary studies. However, I cannot find a way to be creative in the field of traditional music. And now, I still love music.

I took a course last year called the Cultures of Mediated Perception. I first knew about how people perceives sound. They are Pierre Schaeffer's Music Concrete - treating each sound as an object and Soundscape recording proposed by Murray Schafer. I found that it is interesting to record sound and notice about sound in these ways. In fact, I haven't thought of making music in these two ways.

So, I have done a final project by recording some sounds that are memorable for me, representing Hong Kong and treated as sound effects. Then, I edited them together into a piece of music - Symphony of Hong Kong. My friends think that it is like a diary more than a symphony as it is more like a personal experience. Then, fine, I accept this comment. And please enjoy my first sound/music work.

http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/sunnychan2/assignment/sm2204_final.mp3