Appendix

Feedback from Two Exhibitions (Questionnaire)

Aim

With the questionnaire, my aim was to find out why the rules of rhythm matter through the sound works, by playing with the repetition and breakdown of rhythmic patterns for both native Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers, as well as finding out how to represent the investigation into the relationship between sound and the visual in different layouts.

The three questions were posed to ascertain how and whether the intentions of the work compared with the responses from the audience. First, whether the rhythmic ‘flow’ was experienced by the viewers; second, what thoughts occurred as one experienced both the voice and images; and third, what were the physical reactions? The analyses in this section are based on the various responses I received.

Example One: Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm (Exhibition in Ireland, 2022)

Sound and visuals in separate spaces

Selected examples:

1. As in the image.

2. Call across the void. Glitch. Airplane lighting. Mountains right and meeting left. Sinusoid.

3. A mother calling to a child: restrained concern. Amidst disorder.

1. I liked the glitch in the overlap, especially evident in the TV audio accompanying the paintings. The rhythm reveals itself more clearly the more time I spend with it.

2. The halting rhythm and pauses reminded me of when I’m anxious and struggling to speak — especially when trying to express a boundary or uncomfortable topic — I tend to stutter and repeat myself.

3. A bit of discomfort at first, tenseness, but then I feel into the repetition and found it calming — especially in the blue room installation. I felt shivers in my chest and shoulders and lower back.

1. The words of each speaker finish what seemed to be a thought from the other, in a broken rhythmic fashion. When it sped up toward the end, and the voices restarted, it felt very hypnotic. The repetitive drawings also had a relaxing, meditative quality, especially with the sound accompanying it.

2. I wondered what they were saying, and if it had any meaning at all. I felt anxious when the speaking sped up, and shock from the beeping. Meditation during the voices, letting my mind relax and listen without thinking.

3. Tingling, as I didn’t move for a while, and eventually I no longer felt the bench I was sitting on. I finished with the beeping noise. It was very impactful. This work is very strong and evokes emotions from the listener.

Analysis of the responses:

In the feedback, almost all the listeners responded to the repeating and broken rhymes and rhythm, which were revealed more clearly as one spent more time in the space. The wave-like circular flow of the sound at the beginning and the disorder and tension in the voices at the end gave the audience the most vivid impressions. The back-and-forth conversation between the opposing speakers, the syncopation of sound, as well as the repetition of the voices echoing one another also worked for many listeners. The glitches and pauses in the ruptured sound caused emotional, even physical, reactions in the audience, some of them being intense.

In another way, the rhythm revealed itself fully in the sonic patterns, with no more struggle to grasp the content. At the same time, the broken rhymes also caused discomfort for many during the listening process, which clearly demonstrated why the rules of rhythm matter. As an experimental sound work exploring the repetition and breaking down of different components in sound, it brought up very strong physical and emotional experiences (as was hoped for). This suggests that this sonic experiment worked from the perspective of the non-Chinese-speaking viewers.

 

Example Two: 听·见·韵 [Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm] (Exhibition in Hangzhou, 2022)

The sonic–visual space

Translation: (In the Chinese version, I added one more question (no. 2) for native speakers.)

1. How did you experience rhythm in the work?

  1. I hear the rhythm and I can feel the beauty of it.
  2. The rhythm has been broken down a bit, I can hardly feel the beauty of it.
  3. The rhythm has been completely broken down, and it turned into noise by the end.

2. While you were listening to the work, which part got more of your attention?

  1. The content of the poem/lyric.
  2. The sound itself.
  3. Both.

3. What thoughts came to mind when you were experiencing the work?

4. What feeling did you have in your body when you were experiencing the work?

Selected examples:

1. How did you experience rhythm in the work? I hear the rhythm and I can feel the beauty of it.

2. While you were listening to the work, which part got more of your attention? Both.

3. What thoughts came to mind when you were experiencing the work? From a distant ancient time to the complex contemporary time, traversing history.

4. What feeling did you have in your body when you were experiencing the work? Too many things in my ears, wanted to escape.

1. How did you experience rhythm in the work? I hear the rhythm and I can feel the beauty of it.

2. While you were listening to the work, which part got more of your attention? The sound itself.

3. What thoughts came to mind when you were experiencing the work? Traversing from an ancient traditional school to the modern metropolis.

4. What feeling did you have in your body when you were experiencing the work? The noise by the end made my body uncomfortable.

1. How did you experience rhythm in the work? I hear the rhythm and I can feel the beauty of it.

2. While you were listening to the work, which part got more of your attention? The content of the poem/lyric.

3. What thoughts came to mind when you were experiencing the work? The sound is very theatrical, feels like being surrounded by layers and layers of mountains.

4. What feeling did you have in your body when you were experiencing the work? My breath became rapid with the noise, my ears felt uncomfortable.

Analysis of the Responses:

In question 1, most viewers chose the first answer (‘I hear the rhythm and I can feel the beauty of it’), which was a bit far from my expectations, because during some of the conversations I had in the exhibition, the viewers had very strong reactions when the rhythm started to break down. However, after many tours, I started to understand why people made this choice. For most Chinese, the rhythmic patterns of this poem/lyric were in their mind naturally. Even though the sound had been broken down in the listening process, it nonetheless continued in the right rhythm in the audience’s mind, thus its beauty could still be heard vividly.

How did you experience rhythm in the work?

  1. I hear the rhythm and I can feel the beauty of it. (88.89%)
  2. The rhythm has been broken down a bit; I can hardly feel the beauty of it. (8.89%)
  3. The rhythm has been completely broken down, and it turned into noise by the end. (2.22%)

The second question was designed for native speakers, to find out if they could focus on the sound, even though they knew the original content well. More than 90% of the audience focused on the sound or both the sound and the content, which demonstrated my point that when a sound work is completely focused on the sound and rhythm, the native speakers can put their attention on the sound, despite knowing the content and words very well. This was an essential point I needed to test out with the local audience. This was a great opportunity to prove that this methodology I have been adopting was right for this research.

While you were listening to the work, which part got more of your attention?

  1. The content of the poem/lyric. (6.67%)
  2. The sound itself. (40%)
  3. Both. (53.33%)

In question 3, with the illustration below, we can see that the top two words were mentioned over ten times — 韵律 (rhythm) and 声音 (sound). 抑扬顿挫 (an idiom, meaning cadence) was mentioned nine times. The following words were mentioned seven times: 身处 (being in…), 声韵 (sound and rhythm), 山水 (landscape painting), 历史 (history), and 穿越 (traversing); those mentioned six times were 早读 (morning reading lesson), 层峦叠嶂 (an idiom, meaning layer upon layer of mountains), and 戏剧性 (dramatic); and those mentioned five times were 空旷 (spacious) and 之美 (the beauty of…).

This shows that many of the audience heard the sound and rhythm, felt the cadence of the sound work brought to them, and, with these feelings, saw themselves traversing through mountains, space, and time. It was interesting to see all these answers with their beautiful, even poetic, words and varied imaginings. The sonic–visual space definitely helped with the process of mental visualization (compared to the first version), and the vivid images beyond the sonic space touched me deeply. With these answers, the viewers brought me into an otherworldly sphere, which pushed me to think even more about the relationship between sound and vision as a kind of dream. Eventually, with the conversations I had in the gallery space, as well as the research I conducted over the summer, I came across this traditional concept of Chinese lyric aesthetics and started to work with an integrated sonic–visual art form in the next stage of my project.

In question 4, the top word in the center of the chart below, which was mentioned seven times, was 呼吸急促 (polypnea). The next top words were mentioned six times, being 耳朵不舒服 (feeling uncomfortable in the ears) and 抓耳朵 (capturing the attention of the ear). The words mentioned five times were 共鸣 (resonance), 噪音 (noise), and 起鸡皮疙瘩 (goosebumps), and those mentioned four times were 窒息 (suffocating), 信息爆炸 (information explosion), and 烦躁 (set one’s nerves on edge).

With the most mentioned word 呼吸急促 (polypnea), it was very interesting that the listening process in a visually ‘open’ space (compared to the earlier version) could still affect the breathing of many viewers. The next two words 耳朵不舒服 (feeling uncomfortable in the ears) and 抓耳朵 (capturing the attention of the ear) were contrary, yet some of the answers brought them together. For example, ‘Want to escape when it turns into noise, but the sound catches my ear, I want to keep listening’. These responses opened my mind as well. The words mentioned five and four times also show that most of the viewers had negative, even dramatic, physical reactions toward the broken down rhythm/noises. In the conversations I had with the visitors, I learned that these physical reactions were mostly coming from an ‘emotional’ friction for Chinese natives who grew up with these beautiful poetries.

Conclusion

With the detailed analyses of the questionnaire for this exhibition, I learned that for native speakers who understood the rhythmic rules very well, they still felt the rhythm and the beauty. At the same time, the sound works managed to make the native speakers focus on the acoustic layers, despite the presence of the content, demonstrating that sonic patterns can be presented without the interruption of the textual context.

Meanwhile, compared to the initial exhibition, the audience brought compelling insights related to tradition and history and even imagined mind-roaming inside Chinese paintings themselves. This was because, first, the space offered them a place to roam around physically, and second, the traditional knowledge and images deeply embedded in viewers’ minds transformed the space into an otherworldly spiritual space for some. The responses enriched the sonic space itself, as well as opened my mind up as the artist of this work.

Most importantly, the feedback opened my mind; I have started to think about the relationship between sound and imagery as an integrated art form since this exhibition, which brought me to the other essential traditional concepts of Chinese lyric aesthetics and the visual–sonic space, and I have started to imagine the next phase of this ongoing project.