Bustling Declaration

Bustling Declaration is a sound art project about lost.

People from here and there came to big city for good reason. After years of struggling, most of them still remain an outlier to the city, in the meantime; they become a stranger to their mother town as rapidly progressed it. The only thing for them to grasp probably is the accent that showed a root.

In the recordings, six pairs of volunteers, gathered by the artist Feng Hao through social network, in each includes one male and one female from the same hometown outside Beijing, were reading the LAW OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ON THE PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE POLLUTION synchronously with their endemic accent in six most bustling places in Beijing.

When the law of protecting the environment met noisy surroundings, it has no power to protect itself from its opposite.

In the artist’s opinion, there were six historic periods of Beijing, which were Yuan dynasty, Ming dynasty, Qing dynasty, Republic of China, the Culture Revolution, the Reform and Opening-up, showing tremendous changings and impulsive expanding of it.

Recordings were separately uploaded to bandcamp.com and the QR codes covered and peered with the map of the 6 historic periods of Beijing

喧言

喧言 是一個表述迷失主題的社會聲音項目。藝術家通過網絡徵集6 組志願者，每組志願者必須是兩個來自同一家鄉使用同樣方言的男性和女性。志願者分別被安排在北京六處最為吵鬧的地點，用自己家鄉的方言同時朗讀《中華人民共和國環境噪聲污染防治法》並由藝術家現場錄製。錄音完成後上傳至網絡，將錄音地點在北京不同的歷史時期的地圖上標明，並重疊在由聲音鏈接生成的二維碼上。

在北京的外來人口，他們在北京生活多年依然是“外地人”，當回到家鄉時因為不熟悉家鄉的迅速變化亦是“外地人”，而難改的鄉音卻成為在這個城市​​中標示自己地域身份的最顯著的特徵。 

將防治噪聲污染的法律與嘈雜的噪聲環境並置，顯現法律規則在具體現實中的軟弱無力與無所適從的尷尬；使用北京自建都以來的6 個歷史時期（元、明、清、民國、文革、改革開放）的地圖，將這些地圖疊印在今天北京的地圖上並標示出錄音地點，以見證城市的擴張變化

Vexation

2012-2013
wood, graphite, motor, electronics, speakers, conductive tape, wires, glass
48” x 20” x 20” (kinetic), 16” x 19” x 11” (print)
Los Angeles

Vexation is a musical instrument built especially to play Erik Satie’s composition “Vexation”. Satie apparently instructed that the same music should be played 840 times. I wanted to make a work that demands a longer attention span and cannot be produced and consumed immediately. I am interested in the experience of duration involved in the act of listening to repeated sounds. Repetition is difference, since the same sounds take on a different significance as they are replayed.

Inspired by Samuel Biderman’s octave spinet, which is a small and special type of harpsichord that combined keyboard with chess and backgammon board or jewel box, “Vexation” is an electronic instrument that builds upon traditional drawing pencils and woodwork together with modern electronics. I made a moving wooden cylinder wherein I drew marks using pencils of different lead sizes. These pencil marks function as a score. I also designed my own electrical circuit. The contact between the sound circuit and the pencil marks produces audible music. The cylinder can also be seen as a sculptural piece. Its cylinder shape evokes my understanding of vexation - an endless circulation.

In “vexation”, I tried to collapse score and performance: The drawing in itself is the physical material that generates the tone without any human intermediary. The functional circuit is no longer split from the body in which it is embedded. The structure of the music is made clear to the visitor, since the score is displayed as an integral element of the sculpture.

I am interested in transforming existing artworks, presenting them using new forms of notation or mechanical instruments, in order to raise the question: is this the same artwork? When does something become a different work of art? Who defines the identity of the artwork? Is this work a new manifestation of the same composition? My main purpose is to raise the question concerning the identity of the artwork across its various physical forms, not to give a final answer to this question.

Vexation

2012-2013
wood, graphite, motor, electronics, speakers, conductive tape, wires, glass
48” x 20” x 20” (kinetic), 16” x 19” x 11” (print)
Los Angeles

Graphite Piano is a wooden sound instrument, shaped to resemble a piano. It is built with 3 sets of 8 pencils, each with a different darkness ranging from B to 8B. The instrument also has 24 keys, one per pencil. Each pencil is placed above one key. The keys have been drawn on the wood with various shades of pencils. The shade of each key is the same as the shade of the pencil that corresponds to it. The pencils in each set are all placed at three different distances from the keys. Therefore, the same pencil shade will generate different tones, depending on its distance to the key.

Musicians can play the instrument by pressing the keys. This action facilitates the contact of the pencil and the key, which will complete the sound oscillator circuit and generate the tone. The pencil and its marks thus work as a sound switch. This idea is related to other instruments or sound generating devices, including Louis Bertrand Castel's 18th century Clavecin pour les yeux (Ocular Harpsichord) (Hankin 1995, 73), as well as Theremin created by Leon Theremin and the Moog synthesizer by Robert Arthur Moog (and others), both made in the 20th century. The main mechanism of playing the Moog synthesizer is based on flipping on/off switches, so as “Graphite Piano” by pressing the keys to turn on/off of the sound circuit. Besides, musicians can play “Graphite Piano” by waving their hands above the keys. Similarly, sound generation in the Theremin is based on the player’s interaction with an electromagnetic field.

Using the pencil as one of the electronic components for generating sounds seems absurd yet completely makes sense because of its physical properties. The pencil core is made of graphite, which enables the pencil to serve as an electrical conductor. It is also a tool traditionally associated with writing and drawing. The physicality and the function of pencil make it an ideal element to be used in my sound sculpture. This work expresses my interest in the physical aspects of sound and language.

Filtrations – Hong Kong

Ink, plastic and enamel ink mounted to wood panel

Filtrations is a series that began as a composition and performance commissioned by The Kitchen in New York City in February of 2015. As part of the body of work, this group of drawings is created through the mediation of printed patterns; more specially, through their distortion and fragmentation during the production process. Using simple grids and a pen plotter, these works are printed with water based inks on moistened plastic sheets. Chaotic marks occur and build up as the ink interacts with the non-porous surface, producing mediated digital productions. The process turns machine marks into what could be perceived as expressive and organic gestures, calling into question the meaning of such marks in the context of mechanical reproduction. As the ink attempts to adhere to the plastic through an over application of enamel paint, it becomes encapsulated. This encases the temporality of a normally fleeting moment into a material state of elapsed time.

Filtrations – 香港

被安裝在木護牆板上的墨水、塑膠和瓷釉

Filtrations 起始於2015年2月，是一個在紐約被The Kitchen委託創作之作曲和表演而成的系列。 作爲作品中心的一部分，這組畫作透過轉化印製圖案創作而成；最特別的是在創作過程中對圖案的扭曲和分裂。運用簡單的方格及筆式繪圖機，這些作品運用水墨印刷在濕潤的塑膠紙張上。當墨水與無孔的表面接觸時，雜亂的斑痕便開始出現並形成，演變出另類的數碼生產。機械的痕跡在這過程中轉化為可以被看作表達的、自然的表示，並提出這些痕跡於現今機械複製時代的意義。當墨水因過量的瓷釉而黏附在塑膠上，墨水因而被封進裏層；這時，物質包住了那轉瞬間的暫時性、包住了那流逝的時間。

Filtrations – Piano Wire Installation

Piano wire, wood, enamel paint, motors, microcontroller, speakers, transducers, electrical wire

In Filtrations (piano wire), an expanding structure is built up from the center of the gallery. The work is bolted to the floor, with piano wire torqued around the space, expanding out to the ceiling. The work sounds piano wire through motors, transducers and speakers that strike the wire through various mechanical means. This generates endlessly refigured phrases built from generative code and recordings of piano mixed with industrial sounds recorded in the studio of the artist. These works regard the piano as an instrument which is an idea to be deconstructed, using installation as a model for expanding the language and possibilities of the instrument outside of normal formation. Through its regenerating form and filtrations, the work functions as an in-between medium of installation, sculpture, instrument and composition.

Filtrations – 琴弦 裝置

琴弦、木頭、瓷釉、馬達、微控制器、揚聲器、變換器、電線

在過濾 - 琴弦，一個伸延的結構在畫廊中心築起。作品在地板上被閂住、琴弦在空間被扭曲，並一路伸延到天花板。透過機械如馬達、變換器、揚聲器，琴弦被擊打而發出聲音；加上藝術家在錄音室混錄的鋼琴和工業聲音，衍生出聲音那無數再被塑造的過程。這些作品把鋼琴這樂器視爲一個可被解構的意念，並運用裝置作爲樂器在平常姿態以外，其語言及可能的延伸。透過再被塑造的形態及過濾，作品運轉在裝置、雕塑、樂器、作曲的媒介之間。

Leave

Leave is a site specific installation which consists of kinetic movement, found objects, paper etc. There will be sound and non-sound, visual and non-visual. They could be traces of the past events or triggers towards the future. The mass has no weight, the shape has no form. Time assimilates into space. It is a sculpture to be experienced.

離

離 是一個結合動態、現成物及紙張等的在地裝置。它時而有聲、時而無聲；有時是視覺的，有時又不然。它們可以是往事的軌跡，又可以是對未來的觸發點。整件作品沒有重量，更沒有實質的形狀；時間被空間同化，是一個期待被經驗的雕塑。

NAGARAS (“drum” or “kettle drum”)

NAGARAS (“drum” or “kettle drum”) is the title of a series of photographs shot on an expedition into the deserts of Oman in December 2008. These particular desert sounds have been witnessed for many centuries by various travelers, including Marco Polo. “Nagaras” is one of the words used in early tales and rumors to describe the phenomenon.

The question of whether there is a (visible) connection between sound, vibration and physical matter that was explored more scientifically by Ernst Chladni (1756-1827), a German musician and physicist who is often referred to as the “father of acoustics”.

The photographic work can be understood, in a number of ways, as an artistic reference to the “Chladni plates”. NAGARAS is a series of attempts to look more closely at sound through the traces of movement in sand. However, in contrast to Chladni’s symmetrical, documentary and predictable representations of “frozen” patterns, Kirkegaard’s still images of momentary patterns were shot while the sand was in rapid motion, actively emitting sound from within itself. They attempt to visualize the rare and fleeting process of natural sound production known as “The Singing Sands”.