Phainologies

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Phainologies

text + sound composition

phainologies: yushui / jingzhe

sound composition in 2 parts and 6 pentads, 25’

voice: Ellen Wang

This work is a response to the New Year Intensive Workshop in Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong) led by Verina Gfader in December 2017.  Under the theme of imagining/dreaming AAA in the year 6083, Verina Gfader collects participants’ responses over the year of 2018. All contributions are published on AAA’s website: https://aaa.org.hk/en/programmes/programmes/new-moon-publishing

My response to this call is a twofold work based on writing. It is composed of two pages taken from a fictional script of an unrealised film and of a sound composition as the soundtrack from that film.  The text relies on scientific facts about the possibility to archive data in DNA. The sound composition is linked to the solar calendar (yushui) with its 24 terms corresponding to the position of the sun that are each divided into 3 pentads. This work reflects to two positions of the sun (330° and 345°) as it corresponds to the actual time of this submission in the solar calendar (mid February- mid March) and their interpretations  (rain water and the awakening of insects).  The 6 pentads in these 2 moments are referred to within the composition with Chinese sayings associated with the 6 pentads. As a whole, the work focuses on possible alternative relations with nature and epistemology.

In 2021 I revisited the work as a four-channel sound installation with projection: