Underground Cistern, Time Machine

multiple-channel sound installation, mix media, 30 min 30 sec
dimensions variable, 2022
Taiwan Art Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts,
Taichung, Taiwan

Re-edited and remixed in 2-channel version, july 2023

Cover Art by Tang Lokto - Communication/Composition, Midjourney AI - Drawing

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The recording machine is a "time machine", and the space where the entire installation is located, the broadcasting equipment, and the auditory perception of the listener are also "time machines". On the other hand, this name does refer to HG Wells' famous science fiction novel “Time Machine”, the traveler in the story travels to the future and discovers a seemingly beautiful aboveground world and its opposite underground world.

The destination through time is the Gome Pavilion during the installation of the Taiwan Biennale. Half of the sound content is the grinding, knocking, collision, drilling and sporadic tourists’ words that echoed in the space of the Biennale during the exhibition. The voice of planning and control has been silenced after its development, and it would not have been heard by the ears wandering among the works of the Biennale, which have their own places, until it is demolished again for planning and control. The sounds of construction and demolition sound similar at first glance, but they are equally violent to sensitive ears and are only permitted at certain moments.

"Underground palace" refers to the underground water palace as a "sound reservoir" in terms of the association of the space environment, and also refers to the inverted shadow of the underground palace (art museum) on the ground, which is built through sound. Abnormal land and abnormal space are produced by planning and control, the explanation I got from searching on the Internet. As far as I have observed, the abnormal land and space outside the planning and control may be vacant because of this, or may still be used in various flexible ways, if it does not become a place outside the establishment of the system, or a place of poor control The remnants are the hidden places where the establishment hides its control.

If the sound finally flows to the human body, what is the internal space of the human body relative to the underground reservoir? I think it is the oral cavity, which is a space in the body where internal and external sound and liquid flow at the same time, and it is both closed and open.

The other half of the sound content of the work is also located in the deformed space under the stairs where the work is located during the Biennale exhibition. I recorded the sound in my mouth for 30 minutes. Due to the shell resonance effect, the specific frequency of the external sound will be enhanced or blocked. , the sounds of construction, escalators, and visitors are all affected by the opening and closing of lips, throat and palate, and these sounds are amplified by the signal and broadcast from the speakers. The sound and the live sound of the next three months of the exhibition are mixed (without confronting or covering each other). The purpose is not only to flip the body and architecture, the abnormal space and the inside and outside of the museum, but also to eliminate the boundaries from the listener’s perception. These Sound will flow between this aberrant space and the audience, and possibly permeate outward into the present.

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