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.