Artist Statement

Before deciding to pursue Sound Art as a major. I completed a lot of graphic design projects during high school. After I finished from high school, I spent several months working as an intern at an advertising firm and producing graphic design-related work. In addition, I recently realised that during this experience, graphic design was not what I intended to accomplish. Sometime later, I came across the sound art of Ryoji Ikeda. His creations greatly moved and inspired me, as if they were opening the door to a new world. They also taught me about the variety of art forms and the breadth of sound art.

1/2 Listening Text Scores

My brain is like a lion on the farm

that’s swaying in its body in a universe

where the steam train haven’t be invented

the bird and the cow are wondering their names.

Hearing & Listening

In my opinion, hearing is more about the physiological process of hearing sounds than it is about understanding and connecting with the speaker. In contrast, listening is defined as “paying attention to sound; hearing anything with serious attention; and giving consideration.” I think hearing is a very basic and basic act. Contrarily, listening is a three-dimensional.

During my daily life, at first, I begin to hear the sound around me that as same as the process of collecting data. Then, I’m going to listen the things that I want to concentrate in, and I start to filter the sounds that I was interested in or thought might be useful to record.

Three Everyday Sounds

Sound Signal: The Sound Signal is just the most normal thing happened in our daily life. According to that, I recorded the sound of LCC, which included the sounds of people’s talking, walking, laughing and so on.

Keynote Sound: As far as I can see, the Keynote Sound is the sound heard consistently or frequently in a given society or environment to form a context in which other sounds are perceived. The sound I recorded is the sound of the wind outside that mix some sounds of cars, trees, people as well.

Soundmark: I think the Soundmark are some sounds, after being heard, are characteristically targeted to know what is the object making the sound. About that I recorded sound of drying machine and projector.

About My Experience of the Campus Listening Exercise

Feeling with Nature

As I listened to various sound compositions, I gradually felt the fascination of learning to listen to the sounds around me in my daily life. Then I started to carry the recorder with me all the time to record all the interesting sounds in my life. It seems to me that whenever you close your eyes and just immerse yourself in the sounds around you, you often discover a world different from the one you can see visually. I think it’s fascinating and magical to create a world with sound, or to respond to life with sound from everyday life.

Tate Modern

Babel 2001

This piece was the one that struck me the most when I looked inside the whole thing in Tate Modern, it is an oversized installation in the form of a circular tower where the artist Clido Meireles has stacked hundreds of second-hand analogue radios in layers. These radios are tuned to a number of different radio stations on the North Road and are tuned to minimal but audible audio for the human ear, they continuously produce a low continuous sound.

I went back to the source of the whole concept of this device and found that it came from the biblical concept of the ‘Tower of Babel’. In the Bible, the ‘Tower of Babel’ was a tower high enough to reach heaven, and the builders were mandated to use different languages so as not to offend the presence of God, which prevented them from communicating and led to division between the builders and became the origin of human conflict. I find it amazing and interesting to base a work on a religious concept like this, and maybe in the future I can try to use an abstract or legendary concept as inspiration for a work.

One Quote of a Book from the Unit Bibliography

The story of Trojan Records

• QUOTE

“Sometime reggae producer Eddie Airey, who had been enlisted to fill the vacant A&R position, did not last much longer, and left the role to another Jamaican-born musician, Lloyd Seivright. Others to join to the Trojan fold at this time included music journalist Tony Cummings, who was given the task of promoting the label and its acts to the press and clubs, and a new Trojan general manager was found in the extremely capable Clive Stanhope, whose previous experience included managing the independent, Dart Records.”

(Laurence,2018)

• PARAPHRASE

Former reggae producer Eddie Airey, who had been hired to fill the open A&R post, did not stay in the position for very long and handed the job over to another musician with Jamaican ancestry, Lloyd Seivright. The music journalist Tony Cummings, who was tasked with promoting the label and its bands to the press and clubs, and a new Trojan general manager—the incredibly talented Clive Stanhope, who had previously managed the independent Dart Records—also joined the Trojan family at this time.

• BIBLIOGRAPHIC

Laurence, C. H. (ed.) (2018). The story of Trojan Records. Shropshire: Eye Books.

One Sound Art Work’s Historical or Contemporary Context and Why it Interests Me

The Radar 
[fondation vasarely] by Ryoji Ikeda

“There, as noise and beeps coolly hum away, a feed of sonic information flowing like a river, circle and square seem not just convenient geometry but genuine signifier. From moments of sublime abstraction, they become discs of data, portals into a microscope and then a telescope, distant worlds and mapped moons and weather patterns and oscilloscopes.”

Cyril Meroni

•In this piece, sonic information flows like a river as noises and beeps hum coldly, when the screen appear with a telescope, distant worlds, mapped moons, weather patterns…… By this artwork “The Radar”, I finally realise that even with our short internet, even in this video, you might find yourself lost in your daydream.

Three Keywords that are Important to my Practice/Aspirations

Explore:

For me, before I practice, I have to explore, explore the sounds of nature; explore the sounds of people; explore the sounds of everyday life and so on. Not only that, constantly exploring keeps me motivated or motivated to create.

Imagination

In the process of creation or production, I will imagine the environment in which the created audio takes place and the effect in the environment after it is played out.

Vitality

I hope I can always be passionate or energetic when practicing, and the process of create sound, audio or music are full of vitality, which can make the audience have their own thinking or imagination after listening.

Why do I want to study Sound Art?

Before I decided to study for Sound Art. I’ve did a lot of works at graphic design during my whole high school life. Then, after I graduated from my high school, I interned at an advertising studio for months and did some works about graphic design. Moreover, I just realised that the graphic design wasn’t the thing what I wanted to do during this experience. Some times later, I saw the sound artist Ryoji Ikeda’s sound art works, his works inspired me a lot which seems like take me to the gate to a new world, and take me knew about the diversity of art and the extensive of the Sound Art. Not only that, then I saw the book “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” by Haruki Murakami throughly let me realised the magic of the existence of sound in nature in our life. In this book, the author Haruki Murakami shows how wonderful it is that the sound of everything produced around us by describe the silent world. Henceforth I’d love to close my eyes and listen to the sounds around me, and start interested in sound art as well. As far as I can see, it is so interesting to record the sounds around my life and then create them to some new sounds or audios. Just like the impact of visual feast, without the charm of sound, all colourful pictures seem to become a little pale.