The whole installation
Musical Sculptures
—The Echo of Aesthetic Synesthesia and Chinese Literati Culture
This series of sculptures was inspired directly by the musical instrument, and they are playable. They are made for myself, and for memorizing many afternoons that I had spent on practicing my cello in childhood. I love cello, but I hate to practice. I always wonder if I could create something I can play without practice, and I did. As the sculptures for audiences, there is a contradiction of fragility and participation. As the echo of my childhood, they are my orchestra that allows me to be lazy.
The first sculpture is named The Drop of Spring is Like the Broken Jade. (jpg.1.0) It has eight ceramics plates with small rings, tiles, and panels on the top, and holes on the bottom. The way to play it is to put some little objects, such as balls, shells, or scraps on the highest plates, let them get through the holes, and finally fall into the lowest plates. The small objects will hit the plates and make the sound when they are free falling. Since I can change the position of where to start, each time of the objects’ paths are different and the sound will also be changed.
The draft
jpg. 1.0 The Drop of Spring is Like the Broken Jade, 2019
Plywood, ceramics, fishing threads, L: 137 * W: 40 * H: 192 cm / 54 * 16 * 76 in.
SEE THE DEMO OF THIS PIECE
jpg.2.0 The Sunlight is Dancing on the Ice Crack, 2019
Poplar wood, ceramics, L: 21 * W: 21 * H: 160 cm / 8 * 8 * 63 in.
The detail of The Sunlight is Dancing on the Ice Crack
The second sculpture is named The Sunlight is Dancing on the Ice Crack. (jpg. 2.0) It consists of three parts: a vertical fingerboard, fourteen keys arranged from small to large, and a stick to connect the keys. The player places the hands on either side of it and moves the figures as playing the piano, so that the keys will tap the fingerboard. According to the principle of music, when the keys are getting bigger, the tones are getting lower. Or the player can shake the sculpture and make sound.
See the demo of this piece
The third sculpture is named The Stars Are Passing Over the Pale Clouds. (jpg. 3.0) It has a wooden resonance chamber with four strings on one side, and some U-tubes on another side which requires the player to use one hand to play the strings and another hand to hit the U-tubes. This sculpture can make two tones at the same time.
The detail of he Stars Are Passing Over the Pale Clouds
The draft
jpg.3.0 The Stars Are Passing Over the Pale Clouds, 2019
Plywood, poplar, ceramics, strings, tuners, L: 112 * W: 65 * H: 128 cm / 44 * 26 * 50 in.
SEE THE DEMO OF THIS PIECE
jpg. 4.0. The Wind is Swaying the Lake, 2019
Pine wood, ceramics, guitar strings, L: 41 * W: 38 * H: 88 cm / 16 * 15 * 35 in.
The draft
The fourth sculpture is named The Wind is Swaying the Lake. (jpg. 4.0.) The main body is a cube frame with twelve strings crossing its top. The player can use the bar on the right side to rotate the gear, play the strings, shake the knots, or just let the gear turn. The small pieces on either side have the same function as the bridge of string instrument, and they also allow the player to adjust the pitch a little bit. If the player moves the wood piece further, the pitch turns higher.
SEE THE DEMO OF THIS PIECE
The fifth sculpture is named The Stones Are Growing Along the Riverbank. (jpg. 5.0.) The player can use one hand to rub the bars on the right and may also knock the body of sculpture at the same time. The shape of this sculpture imitates the resonator of the instrument.
The draft
jpg. 5.0. The Stones Are Growing Along the Riverbank, 2019
Pine wood, ceramics, L: 70 * W: 100 * H: 17 cm / 28 * 39 * 7 in.
SEE THE DEMO OF THIS PIECE
The draft of the whole installation
Work in progress
Work in progress
Besides my cello background, my art attitude is more close to the classical Chinese literati. I am influenced by the concept of discipline in the classical period of China – there were no strict boundaries between art and other subjects; people were encouraged to be versatile. Music, literature and art, these three skills were always the qualities that the classical Chinese literati, who were high-born and wanted to be in the upper class, have. During the periods of warfare or political malpractice, some of the ancient Chinese literati retreated from the society to create works as an escape from the unsteady present. This tactic consistently refers to the spiritual support for most of the traditional Chinese intellectuals. Firstly, this culture represented a way to against bureaucracy, and then gradually developed into the general vitality, especially in art, literature, and music. Elites who declined official career usually had the ability and qualification to secure a position but preferred to live a simple and art-productive life. This kind of lifestyle progressively became an attitude that not restricted by intellectuals’ places or positions. There is an old Chinese proverb:
“Peaceful nature is but a temporal retreat,
The clamorous crowd is the real place to hide away.”
Which can be understood as:
“The able ones find peace in Utopia,
But the top ones could make it real in Dystopia.”
It means no matter which situations the literati be, they can always keep their faith, ideal, and being themselves. There are a lot of Chinese literati had held multiple identities in their life, such as writer, painter, musician, politician, commander…etc. The ideal attitude encourages me to be an artist who has the faith of connecting different subjects.
Therefore, I use music as the form, and literature as the attitude. My art contains the melody and rhythm from music, and can be explained by literature. When I look for the inspiration of my art creation, they give my artworks musical harmony and literary imagery. Most of time, I combine these three elements in my creation progress by using the patterns and stokes to visualize the melody, creating titles to imitate the atmosphere of works after I finish, and writing poems to explain them.
I write poems for my artworks. Rather than indicting my work in specific sentences, I prefer to write a poem because the poem is similar to art, — an aesthetically suggestive method which only provides a general direction of sense. It fills with metaphors which allow multiple imaginative possibilities to come to audiences' minds. Back to my works for thesis, the titles of five sculptures and their atmosphere can be combined into a poem:
The drop of the spring is like the broken jade，
The sunlight is dancing on the ice crack,
The stars are passing over the pale clouds.
The wind sways the lake,
The stones grow along the river.
There is a legend that the moon has its dwelling somewhere,
Eyes are the moon you can spend the whole life there.
The poem is not only the title congregation for the works but also describing the features of each sculpture. The first five sentences correspond to the process of playing the sculptures and their sounds by using the imagery in nature; the last two sentences emphasize the atmosphere of the whole installation. Therefore, the poem has both the function of explaining the works and the function of presenting the emotions. I see writing a poem as an opportunity for me to stand on bystanders’ stand to understand my own pieces again. It means the integrity of my art, and makes art and its explanatory text become a self-consistent system.
The whole installation
My creative process can be likened to a composer is improvising. In the form, this series of sculptures has the shape of many strings instruments. In the content, rather than think about the structure of the work, I think about in a movement, how the tone and rhythm can be harmonious, or in the concerto, how the orchestra cooperate with the solo? For me, the tone in art is the color; the rhythm is the line; the orchestra is the background; the solo is the main body of the artwork.
Finally, I made a performance on my sculptures and cello to be as the conversation between music and art.