Venue / Public Open Space and surrounding area, Comix Home Base
Date / 2017.02.19
Featured Artist
Wong Chun Hoi (Hong Kong) & Alex Yiu(Hong Kong)
As fate would have it, this edition of Second Coming will be a double bill, featuring two emerging artists whose concerns and focuses are worlds apart. Despite their differences the works being presented here are unified by a singular fascination with low-cost and retro technologies, and a desire to repurpose them to creative ends.
Sound and media artist Wong Chun Hoi will re-make one of his iconic pieces - the hardworking circuit - and turn the piece into a site-specific work. Wong is interested in the “dumbness” of an electronic circuit, and the aesthetic potential of a schema of monotonous, repetitive circuit. Such circuits are consisted of numerous relay switches, daisy-chained into a “cable” that will circle the foyer of the Comix Home Base. The result is a mesmerising domino effect of light and sound, in which the usually-invisible processes of electricity is given a solid physical presence, even beauty.
Composer and sound artist Alex Yiu will present two works: a glitchy video work featuring archival footages of Queen Elizabeth II’s historic visit to Hong Kong, and a live-performance and spatial intervention that involves ten looping cassette players. If you have not witnessed an Alex Yiu performance, you need to see and hear this. Where he lacks in social and verbal communication skills, Alex more than enough makes up in his beautifully awkward, strange, but always relentless stage presence.
About the artists
Wong Chun Hoi
Wong Chun Hoi studied at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong with a major in Critical Intermedia Laboratory. He channels his anger into art. His work involves sound and electronics. Being honest and sincere is his basic creative principle. He works as a sound designer and engineer. He also provides technical support to other artists. He is currently an artistic engineer for the Floating Projects art space. To him, supporting other artists is a way to learn about art.
Alex Yiu
Alex Yiu is a sound artist and composer who works in sound art and music. He is interested in the interconversion of language and society, and the appropriation of sampled sound and visuals from the internet. He is also interested in the interpretation of language, post-colonialism in musical culture, politics in free improvisation, and narrative poetics. His works take the form of video, sound, music composition, and graphical score. He holds a M.Mus. in Sonic Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London.
About the Second Coming Series
The Second Coming is a mini series within Sonic Anchor. In Second Coming, we reconnect with artists who we’d already worked with in previous editions of Sonic Anchor, and provide them with a modest level of support with which to create site-specific works that are conceived specifically for the Comix Home Base. Taken outside of the confines and comforts of the performance space, artists respond to the site’s history, its neighbourhood, and the physical structure’s acoustical properties.
機緣巧合之下，今次的Second Coming Series將會同場獻上兩位關注點及焦點截然不同的新晉藝術家的演出。雖然二人的路線迥異，但他們是次演出的作品異中有同，都能體現出藝術家對低成本復古科技的著迷以及對此重構作為自己創作元素的渴望。
聲音及媒體藝術家王鎮海， 改良了他的代表作－勤力電路，作為場域特定的藝術作品。王海鎮對「電路可以有多愚蠢地運作」這個問題很感興趣，同時亦對單調重複的電路圖富有的美學潛質感到驚喜。勤力電路由海量的繼電器作為橋樑鏈接成一條極長的電線，一圈圈盤繞在動漫機地的空地上，構成一個令人目眩神迷的聲音與光影的骨牌效應，令平時看不見的電流以美麗的聲影呈現。
作曲家及聲音藝術家姚少龍將會展演兩個作品﹕一個充滿訊號干擾、關於英女皇到訪香港的紀錄影片；以及運用十部卡式錄音機進行的現場即興演出及對空間的介入。如果你從未看過姚少龍的演出，這是你不容錯過的表演。姚少龍雖不擅於社交辭令，但他那美麗的怪誕及堅毅不懈的舞台表現足以彌補其不足。
王鎮海生於1990，畢業於城市大學創意媒體學院，主修批判性跨媒體實驗室。創作道路尚在摸索中，暫以悲憤作為創作源動力。作品主要涉及聲音和電子零件。視坦白為創作原則，本業處理一切聲音的工作。兼職自由身另類技術支援予藝術家，為「據點。句點」藝工程師，期望跟其他藝術創作相輔相成。互相學習。
姚少龍是一位音樂人和聲音藝術家，他的作品探討語言和社會的關係，以及錯置聲音取樣和互聯網影像。另外，少龍對語言的演繹、音樂的後殖民主義、自由即興裡的政治以及敍事的詩性均有興趣。而他的作品包括不同型式的媒體，包括錄像、聲音拼貼、即興演奏和圖像譜等。少龍曾接受作曲訓練，後於倫敦大學金匠學院修畢聲音藝術音樂碩士。
Second Coming系列
Second Coming系列是聲音下寨項目中的一個特別計畫。在這個系列中，我們再次邀請曾在以往聲音下寨中作展演的藝術家，在適當的支援下創作專為動漫基地此場地而設的藝術表演。藝術家在脫離演出空間的限制及舒適的環境，直接回應場所的歷史、周遭環境及物理結構等音效特質。
Concert review
Weighing sound in space: Wong Chun-hoi and Alex Yiu
Text: Yang Yeung
At the courtyard of Comix Homebase, a circle of relay switches plugged into multiple sockets laid on the ground around a dozen of chairs. They set up a boundary visitors had to cross to have an experience yet to show itself. Wong Chun-hoi called each switch a ‘dumb unit’ for being simple and low-powered, but able to bring signals of light, sound and other gadgets into operation.
The first relay switch was activated when Wong, sitting on the ground in the middle of the circle, pressed the control button as if holding a joystick. The switches began what Wong called their ‘hard work’, which sequentially activated small toys interjecting the circular line of switches: a glove clinging unperturbed onto a twisted clothes hanger, a palm-sized chimpanzee on a swing, a line of finger-size plastic gold fishes... Their trembling mocked the weight and tediousness of their source of power–hundreds of excessive dumb units. The final point of the circuit was a small and controlled combustion in a coconut shell suspended in front of Wong’s face. Off the fire went, and the circuit released a laugh at its own destruction.
Alex Yiu’s performance carried a steadier and more even rhythm. He began with one cassette recorder and player. Holding it in hand, he pressed the Record button and sang a tone. He then put the machine on the ground, pressed Play to playback what he just had recorded. He repeated the same move for around thirty minutes, with variations to the way he hummed the tone. During the process, the audience was free to move around and find their own way of listening. In multiplying his own technologically mediated voice, Yiu lifted the burden the voice conventionally carried in defining the self. How successful this could be, it seems to me, depends largely on how far space was incorporated as a factor into the dispersal and distribution of the voice.
It was not clear if Yiu was interested in this aspect of the materiality of the sound in relation to the repetition and reproduction of his voice. Since the machines are analog in format, hence imitating physical reality rather than being mediated by a humanly devised language like the digital, how this reality could change (by complicating, condensing, overloading, dispersing, etc.) depends on each of his bodily gestures in relation to the physical properties in the space. Without giving some attention to resonances of the repetition of his voice in space, the meaning of the voice hovers indecisively between its conflicting desires to be rendered null while also wanting to be heard as his original voice.
What to hold up and what to destroy are questions guiding both Wong and Yiu’s artistic decisions in the performances. They could be quick on-site decisions that are contingent and instinctive; they could also have long been prepared for. Regardless of how far each individual work accomplishes what it intends, the curatorial choice of juxtaposing the two is productive of a precious occasion to reflect on the capability of sound among other mediums to constitute intimacy in human relations.
Venue / Public Open Space and surrounding area, Comix Home Base
Date / 2017.02.19
Featured Artist
Wong Chun Hoi (Hong Kong) & Alex Yiu(Hong Kong)
As fate would have it, this edition of Second Coming will be a double bill, featuring two emerging artists whose concerns and focuses are worlds apart. Despite their differences the works being presented here are unified by a singular fascination with low-cost and retro technologies, and a desire to repurpose them to creative ends.
Sound and media artist Wong Chun Hoi will re-make one of his iconic pieces - the hardworking circuit - and turn the piece into a site-specific work. Wong is interested in the “dumbness” of an electronic circuit, and the aesthetic potential of a schema of monotonous, repetitive circuit. Such circuits are consisted of numerous relay switches, daisy-chained into a “cable” that will circle the foyer of the Comix Home Base. The result is a mesmerising domino effect of light and sound, in which the usually-invisible processes of electricity is given a solid physical presence, even beauty.
Composer and sound artist Alex Yiu will present two works: a glitchy video work featuring archival footages of Queen Elizabeth II’s historic visit to Hong Kong, and a live-performance and spatial intervention that involves ten looping cassette players. If you have not witnessed an Alex Yiu performance, you need to see and hear this. Where he lacks in social and verbal communication skills, Alex more than enough makes up in his beautifully awkward, strange, but always relentless stage presence.
About the artists
Wong Chun Hoi
Wong Chun Hoi studied at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong with a major in Critical Intermedia Laboratory. He channels his anger into art. His work involves sound and electronics. Being honest and sincere is his basic creative principle. He works as a sound designer and engineer. He also provides technical support to other artists. He is currently an artistic engineer for the Floating Projects art space. To him, supporting other artists is a way to learn about art.
Alex Yiu
Alex Yiu is a sound artist and composer who works in sound art and music. He is interested in the interconversion of language and society, and the appropriation of sampled sound and visuals from the internet. He is also interested in the interpretation of language, post-colonialism in musical culture, politics in free improvisation, and narrative poetics. His works take the form of video, sound, music composition, and graphical score. He holds a M.Mus. in Sonic Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London.
About the Second Coming Series
The Second Coming is a mini series within Sonic Anchor. In Second Coming, we reconnect with artists who we’d already worked with in previous editions of Sonic Anchor, and provide them with a modest level of support with which to create site-specific works that are conceived specifically for the Comix Home Base. Taken outside of the confines and comforts of the performance space, artists respond to the site’s history, its neighbourhood, and the physical structure’s acoustical properties.
機緣巧合之下，今次的Second Coming Series將會同場獻上兩位關注點及焦點截然不同的新晉藝術家的演出。雖然二人的路線迥異，但他們是次演出的作品異中有同，都能體現出藝術家對低成本復古科技的著迷以及對此重構作為自己創作元素的渴望。
聲音及媒體藝術家王鎮海， 改良了他的代表作－勤力電路，作為場域特定的藝術作品。王海鎮對「電路可以有多愚蠢地運作」這個問題很感興趣，同時亦對單調重複的電路圖富有的美學潛質感到驚喜。勤力電路由海量的繼電器作為橋樑鏈接成一條極長的電線，一圈圈盤繞在動漫機地的空地上，構成一個令人目眩神迷的聲音與光影的骨牌效應，令平時看不見的電流以美麗的聲影呈現。
作曲家及聲音藝術家姚少龍將會展演兩個作品﹕一個充滿訊號干擾、關於英女皇到訪香港的紀錄影片；以及運用十部卡式錄音機進行的現場即興演出及對空間的介入。如果你從未看過姚少龍的演出，這是你不容錯過的表演。姚少龍雖不擅於社交辭令，但他那美麗的怪誕及堅毅不懈的舞台表現足以彌補其不足。
王鎮海生於1990，畢業於城市大學創意媒體學院，主修批判性跨媒體實驗室。創作道路尚在摸索中，暫以悲憤作為創作源動力。作品主要涉及聲音和電子零件。視坦白為創作原則，本業處理一切聲音的工作。兼職自由身另類技術支援予藝術家，為「據點。句點」藝工程師，期望跟其他藝術創作相輔相成。互相學習。
姚少龍是一位音樂人和聲音藝術家，他的作品探討語言和社會的關係，以及錯置聲音取樣和互聯網影像。另外，少龍對語言的演繹、音樂的後殖民主義、自由即興裡的政治以及敍事的詩性均有興趣。而他的作品包括不同型式的媒體，包括錄像、聲音拼貼、即興演奏和圖像譜等。少龍曾接受作曲訓練，後於倫敦大學金匠學院修畢聲音藝術音樂碩士。
Second Coming系列
Second Coming系列是聲音下寨項目中的一個特別計畫。在這個系列中，我們再次邀請曾在以往聲音下寨中作展演的藝術家，在適當的支援下創作專為動漫基地此場地而設的藝術表演。藝術家在脫離演出空間的限制及舒適的環境，直接回應場所的歷史、周遭環境及物理結構等音效特質。
Concert review
Weighing sound in space: Wong Chun-hoi and Alex Yiu
Text: Yang Yeung
At the courtyard of Comix Homebase, a circle of relay switches plugged into multiple sockets laid on the ground around a dozen of chairs. They set up a boundary visitors had to cross to have an experience yet to show itself. Wong Chun-hoi called each switch a ‘dumb unit’ for being simple and low-powered, but able to bring signals of light, sound and other gadgets into operation.
The first relay switch was activated when Wong, sitting on the ground in the middle of the circle, pressed the control button as if holding a joystick. The switches began what Wong called their ‘hard work’, which sequentially activated small toys interjecting the circular line of switches: a glove clinging unperturbed onto a twisted clothes hanger, a palm-sized chimpanzee on a swing, a line of finger-size plastic gold fishes... Their trembling mocked the weight and tediousness of their source of power–hundreds of excessive dumb units. The final point of the circuit was a small and controlled combustion in a coconut shell suspended in front of Wong’s face. Off the fire went, and the circuit released a laugh at its own destruction.
Alex Yiu’s performance carried a steadier and more even rhythm. He began with one cassette recorder and player. Holding it in hand, he pressed the Record button and sang a tone. He then put the machine on the ground, pressed Play to playback what he just had recorded. He repeated the same move for around thirty minutes, with variations to the way he hummed the tone. During the process, the audience was free to move around and find their own way of listening. In multiplying his own technologically mediated voice, Yiu lifted the burden the voice conventionally carried in defining the self. How successful this could be, it seems to me, depends largely on how far space was incorporated as a factor into the dispersal and distribution of the voice.
It was not clear if Yiu was interested in this aspect of the materiality of the sound in relation to the repetition and reproduction of his voice. Since the machines are analog in format, hence imitating physical reality rather than being mediated by a humanly devised language like the digital, how this reality could change (by complicating, condensing, overloading, dispersing, etc.) depends on each of his bodily gestures in relation to the physical properties in the space. Without giving some attention to resonances of the repetition of his voice in space, the meaning of the voice hovers indecisively between its conflicting desires to be rendered null while also wanting to be heard as his original voice.
What to hold up and what to destroy are questions guiding both Wong and Yiu’s artistic decisions in the performances. They could be quick on-site decisions that are contingent and instinctive; they could also have long been prepared for. Regardless of how far each individual work accomplishes what it intends, the curatorial choice of juxtaposing the two is productive of a precious occasion to reflect on the capability of sound among other mediums to constitute intimacy in human relations.