September 28, 2005
Zhong Shuo
24 Hour Access to China
Zhong Shuo (People Say...) is a sound installation made collaboratively by Australian sound artist Iain Mott, Beijing visual artist Ding Jie and the Chongqing art collective the Li Chuan Group comprising Li Chuan, Li Yong and Ren Qian. The work acts as a system for the collection and telling of stories and focuses on the rapid force of change in China. The exhibition at the Long March Space in the Dashanzi district of Beijing, marks the first stage in what ultimately will be a series of installations connected to each other via the internet. It will consist of up to three individual installations set up in three cities including Beijing, Chongqing and potentially a third location on the route of the Long March.
Stage 1 was launched at the Long March Space, Dashanzi, Chaoyang District, Beijing on 20 August 2005. Stage 2 is currently underway in Chongqing with the Li Chuan Group. The exhibition is to be held in the Chongqing Planning Exhibition Gallery at Chaotianmen Square.
Each installation will pose a question to visitors, asking them to tell a story of their experience of change. In Beijing, Ding Jie's design establishes a gently ironic environment for public interaction. Created in the form of a Chinese garden, a kiosk houses a telephone for contributing stories and an adjoining rock-pool plays host to a small school of goldfish and water-plants. Hidden away in the rocks and shrubs is a loudspeaker, which plays a steady stream of stories that have been automatically recorded and edited by a computer. This sound, in addition to the voices, includes ambient sound recordings collected locally and is edited in the style of radio documentary.
Once the other installations have been established, stories will be shared between sites by way of networking. In this way, visitors will be able to reflect on varying perspectives on change. Each installation will share copies of the stories collected remotely and these will be edited together mixing both dialects and points of view. Additionally, the sounds played by the installations will be streamed to the web as internet radio, giving 24 hour access to Chinese speakers both nationally and internationally. Information on this radio channel will be announced by the Long March Space before the opening.
Posted by jo at September 28, 2005 08:48 AM
