= Reflection 感想 =

With no real understanding of the tension between “sound” and “writing”, I only sensed a vague connection between the two when I first learnt about this programme. Aside from the concept of onomatopoeia in Chinese language, and my favourite comics often represented the condition of sounds with words. Catherine led us to rethink the essence of “sound” at our first workshop. The mission of “writing sound” was, in fact, not as easy as one might imagine.

“Sound” is a kind of physical presence that does not carry “meaning” in itself; on the other hand, “writing” has a semiotic presence that exists to represent something else. “Listening” is a reception of acoustic waves, but our brains are too accustomed to sort words by sounds and neglect the meaning and the act of listening itself. One example is the sounds of birds. Every species, every bird, and every time it sings, can sound different. But have we ever tried to listen more carefully?

Chan Sai-lok’s workshop focused on the writing part. What cannot be represented by words (symbols) can only stay in human consciousness with difficulty. We explored different possibilities of using words as a form of symbolism – apart from the established representations, what other purposes could they serve?

I have really enjoyed this journey, this temporary getaway from the world of symbols. We returned to the existing facts and from there reconstructed the world of representations with “symbols”. Such a process allowed me to take a closer look at what is hidden in the world of representations.

最初接觸這個計劃時，還未了解到「聲音」與「寫作」之間的矛盾，感覺上兩者也並非很遙遠。中文裡有擬聲詞的概念，而我最喜歡看的漫畫也常有以文字代表聲音的狀況。到了第一天工作坊的時候，Catherine帶領我們重新認識「聲音」的本質，「書寫聲音」這個任務其實沒有想像中容易。

「聲音」是一種物理性的存在，它本身不帶含意義；但「文字」則是一種符號，它的存在是為了代表另一回事。「聆聽」本身只是對於聲波的接收，但我們的大腦卻太習慣以文字來把聲音分類，然後便輕視了聆聽本身的意義，草率聆聽。例如是鳥類的聲音，如果細心聆聽，我們便會發現每一種雀鳥，或是每一隻同種的鳥，或是同一隻鳥的每次叫喊，其實也是不同的。問題是我們可有細心聆聽過？

到了阿三（陳世樂）的工作坊，我們把焦點放在「書寫」上。不能以文字（符號）表達的事物，其實很難存留於人的意識世界之中。我們重新拆解「文字」這種符號的不同可能性，它除了代表原本的所指外，還可以用來做甚麼呢？

我很享受這段探索的旅程，我們暫時掙脫「符號世界」，回歸到真實的存在，然後再以「符號」重構出這個表象世界。就是這樣的過程，讓我看到表象世界下隱含了的甚麼。