If She Is Not Sitting In The Room
8 channel sound installation
17‘56“ in Loop
677 x 894 x 280 cm (dimension variable)
wood, 14 speakers, interface, computer, soundsystem, 32 songs performed by female
singers, banned in Taiwan between 1932-1971.
These songs‘ lyrics were transformed into Morse code and burned on the wood board:
Longing for the Spring Breeze, The Mother Earth is Calling on You, Rainy Night Flower, Honorable soldiers, Naomi, Sorrow on a Moonlit Night, The Soldier’s Wife, My Love Goodbye, Sayon’s Bell, Sûn-tsînghue Sa-iông, Moonlight Serenade, Farewell Song, A Bag of Sympathy, When Will You Return, Wish You Come Back Soon, Waiting For You, Lonely Flower, I’m Waiting For You, The Evening Primrose, Azaleas in Bloom, Jasmine, Age of Blossom, Pondering Dream, Three Years, Autumn Wind Midnight Rain, Peach
Blossom River, I Want You To Be My Baby, Give Me A Kiss, Tonight Nobody Goes Home, Sunflower, The Plum Blossom, Peach Blossoms Dancing In The Spring Breeze. (《望春風》、《大地は招く》、《雨夜花》、《譽れの軍夫》、《拿阿美》、《月夜愁》、《軍夫の妻》、《情人再見》、《莎韻之鐘》、《殉情花！紗蓉》、《月光小夜
曲》、《送君曲》、《慰問袋》、《何日君再來》、《望你早歸》、《我等著你回來》、《孤戀花》、《我在等你》、《夜來香》、《杜鵑花》、《茉莉花》、《花樣的年華》、《魂縈舊夢》、《三年》、《秋風夜雨》、《桃花江》、《我要你的愛》、《給我一個吻》、《今天不回家》、《向日葵》、《梅花》、《桃花舞春風》)
If She Is Not Sitting In The Room (2021), is an 8-channel (17‘56”) sound installation with spatial intervention. In the work, I take 32 songs performed by female singers that were considered patriotic or banned in Taiwan between 1932-1971 as material. Based on their homogeneous lyrics and the inscribed female role, I composed a new love song. Besides the fragments of the assembled lyrics, I also try to synchronize the different tonal characteristics of the singers‘ voices into a harmonic series, ultimately bringing all the voices together into the root of this harmonic series.
The 8-channel sound piece sings towards the audience from different directions of the venue through 14 loudspeakers embedded in the schematic wooden construction/wooden walls.
I rewrote similar lyrics from the original songs into a new poem(in a sonett form), converted them into Morse code patterns, and burned them on the wooden boards with laser cut. These burned cutting patterns allow the 8 channel sound piece to flow out from the 14 speakers. Meanwhile, the audience perceived them as secret language or visual patterns. The audience is invited to interact with these movable boards, the second layer of the wall construction, thereby controlling the sound and resonance of the room.
The project deals with the propaganda instrumentalization and objectification of the female voice in different epochs. It examines and deconstructs the given images of femininityand the ideals represented by them, the instrumentalized sonic weapon, and their implied complexity.
The work follows my focus on collective memory, identity, and their vectorial relationships to political propaganda and empowerment and transmission.
