The sound recorded by Choi Tsui-yin, Swing @ Nan Fung Park (2012), comes from the swing in the park at Nan Fung Sun Chuen, Quarry Bay. This swing was the tallest facility there, around 3-4 metre, with metal chains carrying 3 seats made of tires. As captured by Choi, its sound was in a repetition of a weird, high-pitch tone.

I grew up in this estate and spent my childhood in this park. Unfortunately, the facilities in the park including the swing were demolished and replaced last year (late 2014). The sound recorded by Choi might be the only audio documentation of the demolished swing ever. I wrote this music piece for 1 to 3 soprano recorders in an attempt to mimic the tone, to reconstruct the demolished swing as well as the fading memory.

Onken Ganjin is not really a close friend with sound, as he finds "deep listening" an interesting but unfamiliar thing. Listening to The Library, the sounds of construction suddenly feel scholarly and air conditioner academic to him. He realizes he is not ready to fully commit to deep listening. Well, this is not a big deal as friends could always be causal and we should be frank to each other to make a comfortable relationship.

“Introduction of Fundamental Sound Play Basic” by Onken Ganjin includes 9 videos with supplementary information. They are about testing out, brainstorming, executing something about sound. Yet, we are not sure they are experiments, researches or simply fooling around.

Acknowledgement :
Lee Hon-wai, Soames Lee, Sung Shiu-hei, Samuel Tang, Solomon Yu

"Thus there is in the life of a collector a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order. Naturally, his existence is tied to many other things as well: to a very mysterious relationship to ownership… also, to a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value - that is, their usefulness - but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate." - Walter Benjamin, Unpacking My Library

The ways The Library works and collects sounds inspire me and make me think about how and why I collect specific sounds, and how they mean to me.

"The painted image makes what is absent... The painted image delivers what it depicts to the here and now. It collects the world and brings it home.... before a Turner the spectator remains aware of the pigment that has been scraped on to the canvas - and indeed this awareness is part of his excitement... Infinity and the surface of the canvas play hide-and-seek in a room where a painting is hung." - John Berger, Ev'ry Time When We Say Goodbye.

Sound relates to us in different aspects - language, music, bodily experience, other senses, feeling, rhythm, movement, distance, time, memories, associations with situations, objects, people, danger... While some of these are personal and abstract, some are cultural even universal, relatable to us as long as we live in a world with sounds. But what if there are people in a parallel universe where there is no sound at all? How can we communicate and share sounds with them if they have never experienced hearing? Is it possible to talk to them about sound anymore? Beyond simply saying and describing the sound of rain as a physical event (bearing in mind people from soundless-universe would not know the difference between sound of rain and sound of sunshine), what else and how else could we say or do to share with them our experiences and relations with a specific sound?

This on-going project invites people to listen to field recorded sounds and encourage them to interpret and share them in their own ways with our special neighbours from a parallel universe.

Acknowledgement :
Eleen Chan, Michele Chung, Thomas Kong, Jessie Lam, George Wan, Grace Yu

When I was listening to the vibrant and diverse sounds from The Library, I imagined the connection between the visual sensorial and the audio sensorial feelings. This has recalled the story of Kandinsky, who was once believed to be a synesthesia painter, someone who could see colours when hearing sounds.

In the first part of Synesthesia Learning Project I have tried to understand synesthesia through interview and researching from archives. The second section is the result of my personal research.

Clay is a medium for feel and touch. While its plasticity allows a lot of freedom for sculpting, concentration is required for moisture control, form building and problem solving. With references to the sound materials from The Library by soundpocket, I have conducted two art projects in a 12-session pottery hobby class for a group of students mainly from Primary 6, who would soon be leaving their school. Listening to these sounds from field recordings from Hong Kong and noticing their rhythm and qualities, the students made their ingenious and original interpretations. This multi-sensory art making experience aimed to introduce them the practice of listening, open up their imaginations and bring out the joy of learning and appreciation of their uniqueness.

The first project Fortune Clay Whistle started with listening to Wind (2002) by Cedric Maridet, under his project, Bending in Air, Again. It was followed by the story of the guardian lions on the roofs of a fishing village in Anping, Tainan, Taiwan. Made of clay, these guardian lions opened their mouths wide and hummed when there was strong sea wind coming from the north. Their sound qualities suggested the kinds of fish that could be caught in particular weathers. Sadly, the guardian lions are now disappearing due to development of the place. With this background knowledge, students explored and created their own fortune creature clay whistle as a token of strength and support for themselves.

The second project Build a Village is an environment design group project involving many listening practices. Students first listened to field recorded sounds from The Library as an introduction, and then practiced listening in different environments around school such as the school lift, the enclosed staircase and open areas. They became more conscious to unusual sounds and noted their diversity due to the environments. They were then asked to imagine their preferences and needs for designing their own village. Consideration to common interests and respect were stressed before students were guided to build the village model with clay, bringing out issues about their personal relationship with a place and contribution to their homeland.

Acknowledgement:
YLPMS Alumni Association Ying Yip Primary School
Videography and production - Chan Ying-wai
Video editing - Gigi Li

I make Cedric Maridet’s Uncanny (2008) represent the moment;
Tang Wai-man’s Switch off the Air Conditioner (2013) the past;
while Joseph Zhan’s Waves (2012) the future.

Without any hierarchies, audios, videos and texts are juxtaposed and overlapped. Videos are edited with different effects while audios are edited to 5.5 minutes without any effect.

As an extension, I am also re-enacting this series of sound-text-image-story in my daily creative process and executing this in different medium. While they are inter-related, they could stand alone as individual works too.

While a sound is being collected through recording equipment, then copied and exported, it has lost its authenticity, original context and its causes and effects. The sampled sound is a stand alone format that we could further interpret and rewrite its meaning.

I have deconstructed and disassembled the sounds we all so used to hear, as well as the associated texts, pictorial evident, memories, personal or collective experiences, cognitive... then reassembled and superimposed them to each other as if they are the clothes I am going to pack into luggage.

Acknowledgement:
Miki Chan, Devitt Koon, Rocky Lau, Cindy Lim, Wendy Wo

Tinnitus is the hearing of sound when no external sound is present. This is a subjective hearing, which is not induced by sound wave, but by the disruptions or damages of nervous signal.

Briefly speaking, Tinnitus is a subjective feeling triggered with a sense of loneliness. It is a hyper-focus on the personal situation or disturbance. The suffering is hard to explain to others, further reinforcing one’s loneliness.

To cut off oneself from this disturbance, one solution is to open the mind to the outer world, letting noises infuse and overwrite the signal in your mind. To another extreme, one could force oneself into an ultimate loneliness, retreating to hyper-focusing one’s inner being, hence making Tinnitus something external to the core.