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Catherine Clover
Chan Sai-lok 陳世樂
Learn 學習 / Mentorship Programme 拜師學藝

First Meeting – 1st Day of the Artist Workshop

3.3.2018 @ Floating Projects, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong

第一次會面 | 藝術家工作坊首日

2018年3月3日 @ 據點。句點,黃竹坑,香港

With the theme of ‘Writing Sound’, the 3rd Mentorship Programme had the fortune to have Catherine Clover, a Melbourne-based multidisciplinary artist, and Chan Sai-lok, a local Hong Kong artist and art critic, as our artist-mentors. They brought with them a number of important dimensions with which to provide local context for the workshop.

On 3 March 2018, we held our first meeting with eight local artist-mentees from various backgrounds, ranging from a musician, a sound designer, visual artist, theatre director, researcher, and journalist. Catherine’s introduction to her artistic creations illustrated some general ideas about writing sound and how this could be converted into artworks.

“As our mentees are all bilingual speakers of Cantonese and English, I could learn about and from their experiences of working with two or more languages, such as their considerations when navigating between the different languages and their unique relations with each language,” said Catherine.

Catherine also talked about Rambling, her performance in Hong Kong in late 2017. Rambling focuses on the voicing and speaking across different species, especially the vocal connections between humans and birds. This performance inspired the artist-mentors and -mentees to start a discussion on bi- or tri-lingualism, based on their own backgrounds. Catherine shared her experience of speaking English and French as a British-native before she moved to Australia. She observed that Australians mostly speak English, Italian, or Greek, and Hong Kongers speak Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. Besides these dominant languages in society, both places have long been cradles of various other languages and dialects. Hong Kong, for instance, is home to a vast variety of local dialects, and Australia has an impressive range of indigenous languages, among which over 300 are now extinct.

“‘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 the 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,” says Donald Chung.

We live in an environment with a mix of sounds, while language has been continually evolving according to social and cultural changes since the beginning of time. To a certain extent language is not always reliable, despite its authority and authenticity. Catherine therefore encouraged the artist-mentees to pay and call for more attention to the sonic properties of language and words without being bound by the usual linguistic barriers such as spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. The process of writing sounds should embrace the dysfunction or deconstruction of linguistics.

The first workshop concluded with an evening soundwalk along the river, under the Ap Lei Chau Bridge. The trail provided a mix of the urban and the natural, with blocks of industrial buildings on one side and planned green space on the other. The sound walk was not only a listening exercise focusing on paying attention, but also a creative one. We interpreted our surroundings by switching between languages and ways of communication, translated the sounds we heard into homophones, and avoided judging the meanings of sounds based on our common comprehension. In our initial attempts to accurately record sounds with words, we realised how insufficient our writing ability was. Apart from the lack of a suitable Chinese vocabulary, our documentation was a double simplification – we might have already forgotten half of the sounds as we struggled to write them down, leaving us with only a general impression. During the listening process, sometimes we even mixed up some sounds. For instance, how much did the “gib-gib” squeak of the squash players’ sneakers sound like bird calls, or was it that the birds were mimicking the squash players?

Throughout the Mentorship Programme, every artist-mentee kept a sound journal to jot down their creative responses. This included writing four texts on sound and drawing four sound maps – two in Hong Kong and two in Kuala Lumpur. After their glimpse into the ideas of writing sound on the first day of the workshop, the artist-mentees started to develop their own visuals, their languages, and strategies to solve this conundrum in the following workshops.

 

第三屆拜師學藝以探索「書寫聲音」為題。是屆除了駐澳洲墨爾本的跨媒介藝術家Catherine Clover外,我們還邀請了香港本地藝術家及藝評人陳世樂一同擔任藝術家導師,藉此為工作坊添上另一層論述,讓討論更貼近本地的文化語境。

2018年3月3日,我們與八位本地藝術家首次會面,他們來自不同背景,有音樂人、聲音設計師、視覺藝術家、劇場導演、研究員及記者等。Catherine先介紹她個人的藝術創作,並借作品為例講述關於書寫聲音的概念,或是它能被轉化成怎樣的作品。

「藝術家學員都能以廣東話及英語作雙語溝通,因此我可從他們身上了解有關運用兩種或多種語言的體驗,例如他們遊走於不同語言時的考量,以及他們跟每一種語言所產生的關係。」Catherine Clover 說。

Catherine分享了她2017年底於香港演出的《Rambling》,作品主要探討物種之間的發聲和語言,尤其是人與雀鳥間的聲音聯繫,這作品隨即引起藝術家導師和學員互相討論各自的雙語或三語背景。Catherine分享英國人主要說英語和法語,而當她移居澳洲後,觀察到澳洲人主要說英語﹑意大利語和希臘語;而身處香港的我們大多說廣東話﹑英語和國語。除了這幾種社會上慣用的語言外,兩個地方本身的歷史都分別孕育了不同的語言或方言,如香港存著不同的本土方言而澳洲則有著多樣的原住民語言等,而當中有三百多種的原住民語言現已失傳。

「『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。」鍾肇熙說。

我們生活的環境由不同聲音所組成,當中包括我們所聽到或使用的語言。這些語言本身隨著社會和文化的轉變也一直演變著。某程度上,儘管語言本身有著一定的權威性、真確性,它或可以是不可靠的。Catherine鼓勵藝術家學員在使用語言或文字來書寫聲音時,多加留意或意識語言及文字的聲音特性,而非一如我們日常使用語言或文字時,總被拼寫﹑文法和句子結構等障礙所限制。在書寫聲音這過程中,我們應該大膽擁抱語言的失效或瓦解。

首日的工作坊以傍晚的聲音漫步作結,我們沿鴨脷洲大橋下的河步行,那是一條結合城市與自然特色的路徑——河的一邊是幢幢工業大廈,另一邊則是被規劃的一片綠化空間。這次的聲音漫步除了是一個有關專注的聆聽練習,也是一個創作練習,我們透過轉換語言或表達方式來譯寫週遭,將聽到的聲音翻譯成同音字的同時,我們也盡量避免像日常理解聲音般對它的意義作出判斷。最初,對於要準確地以文字記錄聲音,我們卻發現書寫的能力是那麼的不充足,不單是缺乏合用的中文詞彙,當中也存著雙重的簡化——當我們努力尋找一種書寫表達之時,可能已把本來的聲音忘了一半,只剩下大概印象。在聆聽過程中,有時我們甚或會被一些聲音混淆,例如我們會想:壁球手的球鞋於移動中所發出的「吱吱」聲跟雀鳥的聲音是何等相似,還是雀鳥正在模仿著壁球手呢?

在整個「拜師學藝」期間,每位藝術家學員都擁有一本聲音日誌,在工作坊的過程中記下不同的創作回應,包括四篇關於聲音的書寫和創作四幅回應聲音的圖像表達,香港和吉隆坡各兩篇。於第一天接觸書寫聲音的概念以及參與後來的不同練習後,藝術家學員都發展出各人獨有的一套視覺、語言或策略,用以解開接下來有關書寫聲音的謎團。

 

Artist Workshop led by Catherine Clover

3–7.3.2018 @ Floating Projects, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong

由Catherine Clover指導的藝術家工作坊

2018年3月3日至7日 @ @ 據點。句點,黃竹坑,香港

Throughout the 5-day workshop in Hong Kong, Catherine led eight local artist-mentees to explore the possibilities of writing sounds, in which everyone began to develop their own languages to write, draw, and annotate the flux, the breadth, and the dimensionality of sound. In response to Catherine’s conceptual and creative practices with birdcalls and interspecies communication, the workshop was designed to re-create her creative practices through practical approaches, such as via daily soundwalks in Hong Kong, and touring around to the industrial area of Wong Chuk Hang, the Youde Aviary in Hong Kong Park in Central, the Tsz Shan Monastery in Tai Po, and the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden in Prince Edward. Every soundwalk was followed by a sharing session on the participants’ listening and writing experiences, the uniqueness of every site, and the correlation between visual and sonic elements. How did the artist-mentees, as bilingual speakers of Cantonese and English, perceive the choices and relations of using or switching between languages when writing sound?

於香港進行的五天工作坊期間,Catherine繼續帶領八位本地藝術家學員探索書寫聲音的可能性。同時,大家也漸漸發展出各自一套語言來書寫﹑繪畫及描述聲音的多變、寬廣以及立體性。因應Catherine本身的創作意念和對於雀鳥聲音以及跨物種溝通的藝術創作,是次工作坊的設計期望以切實可行的方式來進行,讓藝術家學員體會Catherine的創作實踐:於香港每天進行一節聲音漫步——地點包括:黃竹坑的工業區﹑中環香港動植物公園內的尤德觀鳥園﹑大埔的慈山寺和太子的園圃街雀鳥花園。每一節聲音漫步後我們都會進行分享,討論聆聽及書寫經驗和每個活動場所的獨特性,也嘗試探究視覺和聲音元素之間的關聯。擁有廣東話及英文這雙語背景的藝術家學員,於書寫聲音時又會如何理解他們使用或轉換語言時的選擇和關係呢?

“With my conceptual focus on the potential of interspecies communication, listening to voice without searching for meaning is an integral means through which I explore language across species,” said Catherine Clover.

To write sound “effectively”, Catherine guided the artist-mentees to transcribe the writable part of the “sound”. The journey of sound, as she explained, is the transmission of vibrating waves through a certain medium—which is air most of the time—to a receiver: our ears. We can hear passively or listen actively. When we listen, we always make a mental or rational choice to shift our focus, so as to search for or understand the meaning behind the sounds. In fact, we often treat sound the way we treat language; however, when we subtract the cognition of listening (meaning), we then become aware of the ecology of sound/soundscape – to identify a place with a keynote, using a sound signal to map out the view, and a sound mark to identify a particular sound in a space.

「我的創作意念著重不同物種間溝通的可能性,而在發掘物種之間的語言中,『不求甚解』地聆聽是很重要的一環。」Catherine Clover 說。

為了「有效」地書寫聲音,Catherine引導藝術家學員解構究竟「聲音」裡有些甚麼是可以被寫下來的。她解釋聲音是一個傳送的聲波震動,它透過某種媒介——大部分時候是空氣,傳到一個接收點——我們的耳朵,我們可以被動地聽見或是主動地聆聽。聆聽時,我們常帶有一種心理性或理性的選擇,把所聽到的「焦點」轉移,並嘗試尋找或理解每段聲音背後隱藏的意思;很多時候,我們其實以看待語言的方式來看待聲音。可是,當我們去除聆聽(意思)的這個認知後,我們便能察覺到聲音 / 聲境裡的生態——以基調(keynote)來辨認一個地方,以聲音標誌(sound signal)來陳列出前景,和以聲音記號(sound mark)來清晰分辨出空間裡某種特定的聲音。

“I encouraged the artists to write/draw/compose in the journals, searching for some way of drawing correlations between the visual and the sonic that made sense to them and their particular interests. Rhythm, repetition, and metre proved to be helpful ways of approaching how sound could be written via mark-making,” said Catherine Clover.

Because of our expectations or assumptions in different locations—especially our various associations for an urbanised context—location affected how we understood the sounds heard. Take the birdcalls in everyday life, for example: they have been reduced to an impression that is generally understood as negligible, because not much information can be obtained from them. This cognition in our listening implies the level of comprehensibility, which affects our sensitivity to different sounds, within which lies a kind of connection between the sound and our senses. This five-day workshop in Hong Kong set off from our imagination of the visual forms of sound, moving onto sketching the images out, and then converting them into a record of the traces or a representation of the creative onomatopoeia. Through unlearning our preconceptions, the artist-mentees became something like foley artists but who recorded and created with their pens.

「我鼓勵藝術家學員留意讓他們感興趣的聲音,嘗試將之與視像連結,並在手記上書寫、繪畫或創作。在書寫聲音上,著眼節奏、 重複出現的部分及節拍是很好的記錄方法。」Catherine Clover 說。

因著我們針對不同地點所存有的某種預想或假設,尤其是城市裡的各樣聯想,地點本身也會影響我們如何理解所聽到的聲音。以我們在日常生活裡所聽到的雀鳥聲為例,基於不能從中獲得任何資訊,它早已被壓縮成一種印象,我們大多把它們理解成一種可以被忽略的聲音。這些聆聽裡的認知反映著對聲音可被理解的程度,從而影響我們對不同聲音的感銳度,當中存在一種外在聲音與我們感官之間的連繫。香港這五天工作坊始於我們對聲音的視覺狀態的想像,繼而嘗試把它描繪成圖像,再轉化成痕跡記錄或是創意擬聲的呈現。透過忘掉學過的既有理解,藝術家學員就像成了一位以筆來錄音和創作的音效師。

 

 

Research Trip @ Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

31.3–6.4.2018

考察之旅 @ 吉隆坡,馬來西亞

2018年3月31日至4月6

Three weeks after the Artist Workshop in Hong Kong, the artist-mentors and -mentees met again in another city – Kuala Lumpur. During this one-week research trip, we immersed ourselves in an environment of extremely diverse languages, which offered a rich multi-lingual and -cultural context for further discussion on languages, and exploration into the different sonic properties of the everyday life of various sounds.

The engagements and conversations with the local artists, curators, and communities not only allowed for a better understanding of the art circle of Kuala Lumpur, but also sparked our curiosity on the said topics on sound. Our workshops, gatherings, and discussions took place in RAW Art Space, a 5-storey tong lu located near the China Town District. RAW Art Space is also home to other art spaces, including Lostgens’ Contemporary Art Space, and Moutou Art Space. Apart from the café and traditional vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor, there is an authentic Indian restaurant around the corner. What we heard during our everyday commutes between RAW and the neighbourhood, from the people we met at our meals, the radio broadcasts, the music played, the languages spoken by other diners… all these spontaneously triggered countless interesting conversations on language. During the trip, we also visited Rimbun Dahan, a private art centre running an international artist residency programme, and Zhongshan Building, an independent art and creative hub where we met with several creative initiatives including The Ricecooker Archives, Rumah Attap Library, and the Malaysian Design Archive. All these fruitful encounters allowed us to learn about the arts communities and ecology of Kuala Lumpur through the different perspectives from local artists, musicians, designers, filmmakers, and researchers.

完成香港舉行的藝術家工作坊的三星期後,藝術家導師及學員再次聚首於另一個城市——吉隆坡 — 展開一星期的考察之旅;我們沉浸在一個語言如此多樣化的環境裡,讓我們在豐富的文化語境中延續較早前各樣有關語言的討論,同時在這充滿不同聲音的日常之中探索不同的聲音元素。

與當地藝術家﹑策展人和群體會面及交談除了讓我們更深入了解吉隆坡的藝術生態外,更重要的是激起我們對於上述有關各種聲音主題的好奇。在吉隆坡舉行的工作坊及其他聚會及討論,都於RAW Art Space進行。RAW Art Space位於唐人街附近,是一幢樓高五層的唐樓,當中還駐有其他藝術空間如Lostgens’ Contemporary Art Space﹑Moutou Art Space。地下除了咖啡店和傳統的素食飯店外,街角還有一間地道的印度餐廳。幾天以來,我們從往返RAW和鄰近社區時所聽到的,或用膳時遇見的人﹑廣播中的電台﹑所播放的音樂所使用的語言,都自然而然地引起我們和當地人之間跟語言相關的無數有趣對話。我們也參觀了營運國際藝術家駐留計劃的私人藝術中心Rimbun Dahan,以及獨立藝術及文化集中地Zhongshan Building,在那裡我們會見了創意單位如The Ricecooker Archives﹑Rumah Attap Library和Malaysian Design Archive,這些都是使我們獲益良多的相遇,讓我們能從當地不同藝術家﹑音樂人﹑設計師﹑電影製作人及研究者的角度中多方面了解關於吉隆坡藝術群體與生態。

While Hong Kongers like us are probably accustomed to living in a multi-lingual society, we were still amazed by the dynamics of using four or five ‘main’ languages in Malaysian society. A local artist shared a very interesting point about the locals’ habits of communication: locals tend to blur the language boundaries by borrowing and mixing vocabularies/phrases to substitute what is ‘lacking’ in another language. To a certain extent, they are breaking down the languages while re-creating them, based on their backgrounds, communities, and the recipients of their messages. There is no single standard for the use of language and every switch between language marks the unique choice of every individual.

These exchanges have been incredibly insightful for our later discussions on ‘writing sound’. We went for another soundwalk in the KL Bird Park – an enclosed aviary that houses more than 3000 birds, from over 200 species, among which 90% are local birds and the rest have been brought from overseas. When we were drawing a sound map of the KL Bird Park the artist-mentees also learnt to blur the boundaries between textual and visual languages by borrowing the sound of a word or an alphabet, or the form of the character itself to associate with the subject/object and the sound it made.

“…to imagine the unimaginable content of bird calls from their tone, frequency, emotions. These calls, to my surprise, could tell the physical characteristics of space, like big or small, near or far, open or closed, high or low. I slowly realised how I could apply these experiences on my understanding of space…”, said Fizen Yuen.

Besides the enormous number of birds, the most impressive experience of this soundwalk (compared to the one in the HK Zoological and Botanical Gardens aviary) is the distance and relationship between birds and humans. Different species of birds wandered around, stood still, flew by a hair’s breadth away from us. Visitors were no longer beholders but became one of the species that was being observed in the aviary. Species in different zones and corners of the aviary sent out frequencies that vibrated in the air. The artist-mentors and -mentees jotted, paused, drew, and walked. In such an environment of “nature”, sometimes they listened to a sound unseen, sometimes they closely observed the movement of the birds to find out how they created their small voices.

對於來自香港的我們,或許早已習慣生活於一個慣常運用多重語言的社會裡,但對於馬來西亞社會如此這般靈活地運用著四至五種主流語言我們仍是感到非常驚奇。其中一位跟我們踫面的本地藝術家跟我們分享了一種很有趣的說法:她解釋當地人在互相溝通時常用的習慣,會模糊掉不同語言之間的界線,並互相借用﹑混合語言之間的詞彙或片語來取代另一個語言中所缺乏的表達方式。某程度上,他們正在拆解但同時重新創造語言本身;視乎他們的背景﹑所身處的社群﹑和他們傳遞訊息的對象,當中並無一種使用語言的標準,但每一次轉換語言也是他們獨特的選擇。

這些交流都為我們後來有關「書寫聲音」的討論帶來很多啟發。此外,我們還在KL Bird Park進行了另一場聲音漫步,在這封閉的觀鳥園內養有二百種多個品種、合共超過三千隻雀鳥,當中近九成是本地品種,其餘則從外地進口。當我們在KL Bird Park進行視覺圖像的描繪練習時,藝術家學員也學習模糊文字和圖像的界線,借如文字或字母的聲音,或是文字本身的形體來對主題或物件和它所發出或產生的聲音作聯想。

「…從鳥聲的語調、頻率、情緒想像那些不可被想像的內容;而從這些聲音中,竟然慢慢可以聽出空間的物理特性,範圍大/小,距離近/遠,開揚/封閉,高/低,然後我慢慢發現這些經驗可以遷移到觀看展覽時對空間的感知。」袁嘉駿說。

除了數量龐大的鳥群,跟在香港動植物公園內的觀鳥園所進行的聲音漫步相比,這次經驗最難得之處在於雀鳥和人類這兩個物種之間的距離和關係。KL Bird Park的觀鳥園內,不同品種的雀鳥在的四處漫步,有的靜靜站著一旁或是非常近距離在我們的身邊飛過。遊人不再只是參觀者,他們彷彿也成了園內的被觀察的其中一個物種;觀鳥園內散聚於不同區域與角落的物種也在空氣的迴盪間發出不同頻率的聲音。藝術家導師和學員一時作記、一時駐足;一時描繪、一時漫步。在這「自然」的環境裡,有時他們聆聽著看不見的聲音,有時則會近距離觀察雀鳥的行動,細心發現雀鳥們怎樣產生那些微小的聲音。

 

 

Kuala Lumpur Research Field Trip – Artist Presentation

5.4.2018 @ Raw Art Space

吉隆坡考察之旅 – 分享會

2018年4月5日 @ Raw Art Space

The end of this fruitful research trip was marked by a public presentation at RAW Art Space on April 5, 2018. Artists and curators in Kuala Lumpur were also invited to share the discoveries of the artist-mentees and give their insights.

Wayne Choi and Jacklam Ho showcased their pieces in the sharing session. Wayne played a mix of sound recordings made during the week and samples from a local radio programme via a local radio channel; and Jacklam transformed the birdsongs written in words of another language by ‘google-translating’ and mis-translating them. From the beginning of the programme, we had discussed how humans could or could not pronounce or imitate the sound of another species – such as the sounds of the birds. We had been trying to understand and describe the sonic properties like pitches and frequencies, as well as the feelings and emotions behind them. The pronunciations formed by the artificial intelligence or computer sounds were very different from the original bird sounds, but Jacklam’s piece demonstrated the use of different media to write and read sounds, exemplifying the nuances of the interchangeability between sound and signifier.

Sean Wong captured the visual rhythms and found objects in the cityscape via photography and used the lines and shapes of these found objects as signals for writing and documentation. JC Jessie considered the visualisation of sound as a process of internalization and expression. The process was not about how accurately writing could record the sound, but more about how she received and understood a specific experience or audio clip through the documentation of the soundscape.

“We can only start to get closer to the true meaning of sound when we learn to forego meaning.” – This “unlearning” process has been the most inspiring part of the mentorship programme for Fizen Yuen. Only when we depart from our established understanding of sound, language, and words can we begin to discover the intricate differences of sound.

是次豐富的考察之旅由2018年4月5日於RAW Art Space進行的公眾分享會畫上句號。吉隆坡當地藝術家及策展人也被邀請前來,聽聽藝術家學員在旅程之中的發現和分享他們的觀點。

蔡穎和何子洋在分享會中展示了各自的聲音創作。蔡穎佔用了當地一條無人使用的電台頻率來進行演出,當中他混合了考察之旅期間所採集的聲音和節錄自當地電台節目的聲音片段,同時加入人聲創作了一段現場演出。何子洋則以記下雀鳥聲的文字,並運用Google的網頁翻譯功能來錯誤翻譯及閱讀這些聲音,將之轉化成另一種虛構的語言。事實上,自工作坊的開初,我們都不時討論到人類能否發出或模仿出其他物種,如雀鳥所發出的聲音—我們嘗試理解和描述聲調﹑頻率等聲音元素以及鳥聲背後隱藏的感覺和情緒。雖然由人工智能或電腦所發出來的聲音跟雀鳥原本的發聲有著很大的差別,但何子洋的創作分享也剛好展示了運用不同媒介書寫、閱讀聲音,以及聲音及語意兩者再轉換之間可能產生的妙微之處。

黃翊豐以攝影捕捉城市光景裡和現成物中的不同視覺節奏,也以現成物作為工具繪畫聲音,將物件本身的形狀及線條化為符號用於書寫及記錄之中。謝西視聲音被轉化成視覺為一種內化與表達的過程,這過程並不旨在準確地以書寫來記錄聲音,而是透過聲景的描繪記錄個人對某種經歷或某個聲音片段的感官和理解。

「當我們學會捨棄意義之時,才能開始接近聲音真正的意義。」——對袁嘉駿來說在整個探索的旅程最具啟發性的是「忘掉所學」的過程。當我們離開一直以來針對聲音、語言及文字所建構的理解,才能開始發現這些東西之中複雜又細微的差異。

 

 

Post-Research Trip Artist Workshop led by Chan Sai-lok

9 & 17.4.2018 @ To Kwa Wan Studio, Hong Kong

後考察之旅藝術家工作坊,由陳世樂指導

2018年4月9及17日 @ 土瓜灣工作室,香港

Artist-mentor Chan Sai-lok was facilitator for the discussions throughout the workshops and field trips. At the two post-research trip workshops on 9 and 17 April 2018, he contextualised the idea of “writing sound” in the Chinese and Cantonese languages with the mentees, and introduced different readings from Chinese literature as guides to exploring the different possibilities of sound and words as signs of documentation.

“The surreal tranquillity of bowl breaking in Yank Wong’s Cracks of Borscht left me in awe,” said Li Hiu-wa.

Apart from the established representations, we wondered what other meanings words could serve. Sai-lok led a writing exercise using a local Kuala Lumpur newspaper as working material, and invited artist-mentees to select vocabulary and phrases from the newspaper and re-compose a new piece of creative writing using them.

The seven artist-mentees eventually concluded this year’s mentorship programme with the public workshop “In One Ear and Write Out the Other”. Through sound walks and various listening and writing exercises, artist-mentees guided participants to expand the understanding and imagination of collecting sound and learned to convert words and images into hearing and listening experiences.

藝術家導師陳世樂在工作坊及考察之旅一直引導著當中的討論,而其後在2018年4月9日﹑17日進行的兩節工作坊,他根據中文及廣東語的語境重整了有關「書寫聲音」的概念,也分享了一些中文文學的文本,跟學員們共同探索聲音以及文字作為書寫聲音的符號的可能性。

「特別對《羅宋裂痕》有印象,現在都還記得盤子裂開但卻寧靜的感覺。」李曉華說。

除了本身已建立了的表述,我們好奇文字可代表的其他意義。世樂跟我們進行了一個書寫練習:他以一份吉隆坡的本地報紙作為創作材料,邀請藝術家學員們摘取報紙裡的詞彙或短句,從大家所收集的文字庫中,每人須重新書寫一篇創意寫作。

最後,七位藝術家學以設計及帶領《左耳入右手出》工作坊作為今屆「拜師學藝」的總結。透過聲音漫步和不同的聆聽及寫作練習,藝術家學員帶領參加者拓闊對採聲的理解與想像,學習如何將聲音及聆聽經驗化為文字或圖像,我手寫我耳。

 

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