Sound Art
We Are the World, as performed by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions Choir
Samson Young
2017
Video and multi-channel sound installation Courtesy of the artist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzJkDR7YvX0 (4:20-4:56)
When I was interning at Venice Biennale earlier this year, I came across the works of Samson Young, a leading artist in Hong Kong. He was the representative of the Hong Kong Pavilion and presented Songs for Disaster Relief, a series of works that attempts to reframe the popularization of “charity singles” as a historic “event” and a culturally transformative moment. He created a fully immersive experience including a handful of Sound Art pieces, I will be talking about We Are the World, as performed by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions.
We are the World was situated near the end of Samson’s ensemble of works. Interestingly, one needs to cross a set of heavy curtains, almost like stage curtains to enter the gallery where the work was at. The setting of the work features a simple projection of the choir singing and rows of old theater chairs. By sitting down, the viewer is implicated into the exhibition itself.
The projection shows a choir of middle-aged women and men. They sing the song “We are the world” in a unique manner– without tones but by reciting the lyrics as they breathe in and out collectively. This creates a eerie yet soothing effect as sound produced skirts between being visceral and also humane.
It then begs the question of whether the choir is in fact making music, and if that is comparable to conventional notions of music or songs. The raspy and raw sound produced with this choir’s performance becomes a critique of the hypocrisy of honor and the dizzying (for being dazzling) effect of pop music on stage. It also shows the limited impact of charity singles, how the mere of singing does not affect the grief and damanges brought about by disasters.
Essentially, Young poses a question – do we become better persons singing charity songs for disaster relief?
In the Summer of 2014 we discovered the inspirational work of Japanese designer Kouichi Okamoto and his Kyouei Design when he released his elegant ‘Square Wind Bell‘. This year Okamoto has returned with another remarkable project named ‘Re-rain’, which was presented to the world at the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art. In his inspirational project the designer created a sound installation through which he aims to express non-visible elements such as gravity, magnetic force, and sound as physical elements. Created with the sound of rain recorded in Japan during the early days of 2016 as its soundtrack, ‘Re-rain’ is constructed out of a set of umbrellas placed on top of speakers. The vibrations of the sounds out of the speakers are transmitted through the umbrella to make a sound, but an umbrella cannot vibrate if the magnetic force of the speaker is too small or if the rain hitting the umbrella is either too high or too low in pitch. For this reason a device picking out a state in which the magnetic force of the speaker, weight of the umbrella, and pitch extent of sound are all in a perfectly balanced state forming this beautiful installation.
Re-rain
Kouichi Okamoto
2016
Umbrella, Speakers, Iron, Speaker Cables, CD Players
I saw this work in Jendela, Esplanade a couple of years back. I really enjoyed how minimalist and simple the whole work was.
Okamoto explores the inter-connectivity of humans and their surrounding spaces with the use of his sound installation. He played the sound of rain through the speakers, the vibrations from this affects the umbrella on top thus creating a cacophony of different sounds based on the environment and also the audio file. Thus it also comments on the harmony of the environment, showing how different (disparate) elements come together to form a peaceful and natural sound environment.
Seminar Questions
- What is sound?
Sound according to Neuhas is an aural component. Essentially sound is a vessel for conveying information to be received through the sense of hearing.
- How has it been use in culture and society?
Sounds when organised can be regarded as music. And music is a way of expression or preservation of culture, and thus communicative. In popular music, sounds is also used to fill up every minute so as to curb the anxiety of having to confront surface noise (silence).
Of course, sounds when organised and standardized in a different manner can become language. Languages ascribe meaning to sound, thus it allows ideas sharing and communication between people. This is a building block of communities and thus society.
- What makes it an art?
Sound becomes art when it is the subject matter of an artwork, when artists begin to examine sound itself. This is not to be confused with simply using sound as a medium in art.
- How advancement in audio technology affect our sense?
Advancement in audio technology concurrently heightens our sense. As mentioned in the essay by DeMarinis, after phonography was invented, phonographers learnt about environmental sounds. Environmental sounds are in fact inadvertent sounds of the environment that we commonly regard as “silence”. This heightens one’s sense of hearing as the previously regarded void of sounds is now found to be filled with other sounds which we do not ascribe any hierarchal importance to.