Exhibition - What Potions have I Drunk of Siren Tears?

As Greenberg stood on the peak of modernism, prescribing the aesthetic principles that artists of each different medium should comply with in order to secure the advancement of art, contemporary art had quietly begun to demolish the confines of media; John Cage, inspired by Rauschenberg’s “White Painting” created the composition “4’33’’” as a means to consolidate the concepts of readymade, spatial aesthetics, music of silence, chance and more, eliminating the distinctions between visual and sound aesthetics. He began bridging the creative possibilities of the two senses, and involving visual elements in all succeeding sound arts while drawing support from various contemporary art strategies to examine the intrinsic qualities of music and sound. The poet’s sonnet proposes references to the siren singers in Greek mythology; through alchemy, the sirens’ enchanting ability is converted into tears, something tangible. The works of Cheuk Wingnam and Alex Yiu serve to express two of the directions that the new generation Hong Kong sound art partakes in; this time, the two artists aim to dissect the performance nature of music and its connoted social consciousness as their creative approach.

The two exhibiting artists exemplify the most current directions of sound art in Hong Kong, as an increasing number of sound artists begin to incorporate installation and visual elements before inserting in sounds to expose its social, experimental and critical aspects. Alex Yiu’s work includes various visual forms, including video, editing and animation. He combines sound collages with improvised performance to recreate images of popular music and collective memories; an unsettling ambiance is created through garbled codes, videos jammed with glitches, and noises, exhibiting the various predicaments and social chaos that Hong Kong has been through. Cheuk Wing Nam’s work carries a tone of humor where rejection and contest become imperative elements in her work. Musical instruments like the cello and violin serve as the exterior basis of her installation work while cassette tapes, speakers, amplifiers, and an electronic lever are further installed to encourage the audience’s desire to interact with the installation. Hidden within are micro-controller and an electronic instrument that utter irritating sounds and noises, implying an act of defiance.

「鮫人之淚」英文展名為"What Potions Have I Drunk of Siren Tears"，原文出自於《莎士比亞十四行詩集》中的詩文，中譯為「曾喝過幾多賽倫女妖的淚珠」。鮫人與賽倫以較廣為人知的說法為人魚，在西方神話中，賽倫慣以動人的歌聲引誘航海者觸礁；於東方傳說裡，鮫人滴淚成珠。策展人結合東西神話，隱喻聲音藝術在當代中的轉換。從克萊門特•格林伯格（Clement Greenberg）提出藝術透過自我表現而回歸純粹的特質，藝術的創作形式日漸廣泛。而馬塞爾•杜尚（Marcel Duchamp）早已在1913年以聲音為形式，創作了〈音樂勘誤表〉以及其他聲響作品。聲音雖然看不見，但是經過藝術家的創作便能夠將其形象、實體化。本展除了探討音樂與聲音的本質，亦將聲音這門藝術幻化為有形之物，呈現於觀者面前。

本次展出的兩位藝術家，代表了香港聲音藝術的趨勢，愈來愈多聲音藝術家在作品中加入裝置與視覺元素，再以聲音切入並點題其社會性、實驗性與批判性。姚少龍的作品加入許多視覺形式，包含錄像、剪輯與動畫，搭配聲音拼貼與即興演奏，重製膾炙人口的流行音樂與集體記憶的影像，以亂碼、受干擾的錄像與噪音呈現出令人不安的氛圍，表現出香港經各種歷過的困境與社會亂象。卓穎嵐的作品帶有戲謔的風格，排斥與對抗成為她作品不可或缺的要素，外觀以樂器如大提琴與小提琴為裝置基礎，加裝盒式錄音磁帶、揚聲器、擴音器，甚至電動推桿，吸引觀者興起與裝置互動的慾望；在內部則藏以微控制器與電子樂器發出惱人的聲響，暗示著抵抗的行為。