Methodology for Approaching the Question Why the ‘rules of rhythm’ Matter: Sound Practice

In order to examine the use of traditional rhythmic rules in contemporary practice, I started with the essential question of why the rules of rhythm matter. Using two sound experiments —The Sad Zither and Yumeiren (Tune): Spring Flower and Autumn Moon — the work Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm explores rhythmic form in both repeating and ‘breaking’ rhythmic rules; in other words, to emphasize the rhymes first, then to disassemble them completely. To probe the necessity of rules from a practice-related perspective, I first establish the formal rhythm, then dissect these rules to demonstrate that any interference causes the loss of articulation of a poem/lyric. In this process, my aim is not merely to demonstrate that the shattering of ‘rules’ causes the loss of meaning or order, but rather to explore the latent, potential, or expressive results that unravel into acoustic and visual ‘layers’ that both echo and dissolve. The gradual dissection of rhythmic order is key to my work. The progress of the disassembly can be experienced slowly, in the listening process, which not only matches with my hypothesis theoretically, but also resonates with my sonic aesthetics personally. In this section, I use Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm: The Sad Zither as an example to demonstrate the art-making process.

Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm: The Sad Zither

The Sad Zither [1] (锦瑟; Liu 2021b) is a vocal performance I made in 2021, which investigates the formal repetition of rhymes within individual poetic patterns. In previous sound works in 韵 echoed (Liu 2021a), I examined the rhythm of a whole poem/lyric, in order to deal with the question what are the rules of rhythm. However, in this project, my aim was to find the reason why rhythmic rules matter, playing with the rhymes of entire poems or lyrics that no longer ‘work’. Thus, while investigating why the rules matter, the content of the poem was disregarded and I dealt with the rules of rhythm solely by focusing on the particular rhymes within individual poetic patterns.

In this, I benefited from Ye Jiaying’s poetry course (as mentioned in the previous section) and adopted her yinsong — which are closer to ancient Chinese and in which the rhymes of each phrase can be heard clearly. Then I disassembled the stanzas and focused on the rhymes themselves, specifically the end rhymes (the details of the 平 and 仄 tones are illustrated above), playing with the repetition of the end rhymes, from three end rhymes toward the end, with only the last one remaining. The idea is to constantly repeat the rhymes to the point where words lose meaning, showing that what matters is the sound of the form.

The repetition of the end rhymes is key in The Sad Zither and feedback from both the native and the non-Chinese-speaking audience is pivotal for testing this artistic experiment. The work begins with the entire poem, but is then broken down as the rhymes start repeating. Taking the first line of the poem, ‘锦瑟无端五十弦’ (jǐn-sè-wú-duān-wǔ-shí-xian) as an example, the yinsong starts with the entire line. In the first repetition, the three end rhymes ‘五十弦’ (wǔ–shí–xian) are repeated. Since the rhyming tones of wǔ–shí–xian are ‘仄–仄–平’ (departing–rising–flat), the sonic rhythm of the vocal performance moves from ‘departing’ to ‘rising’ and to ‘flat’. In the second repetition, the end rhymes wǔ–shí–xian are repeated twice, and the rhyme scheme ‘departing–rising–flat’ is then repeated twice as well. In this way, in the constant repetition of the sound performance, the rhythmic patterns of the end rhymes are also repeated in the yinsong process. Toward the second half of the work, with the pace speeding up, words lose their meaning and one can hear only repetitive sound/rhythmic patterns. By the end, for the end rhymes of the first line wǔ–shí–xian, the textual meaning is completely lost, as one can only hear ‘departing–rising–flat, departing–rising–flat, departing–rising–flat, departing–rising–flat…’ Both the sound design sketches and the sound editing window offer clear visual representations of the vocal repetition.

A clip of the sound work 锦瑟 The Sad Zither [2] 

The Sound Space

The presentation of the sound works, Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm, occurred in two different exhibitions, in Ireland and China, in 2022. One was an immersive sound space isolated from the visual works (Liu 2022a, document image of the immersive sound space), while the other was an integrated visual–sound space (Liu 2022b, document image of the sonic–visual space). The original design of the sound space was an isolated dark sonic space. In a dark and isolated room, two speakers face each other, in an echo space. This ‘echoing space’ creates a strong ‘conversation’ between ‘opposing’ speakers/voices (literally and figuratively), to emphasize the character and texture of the vocal performances. With the dim surrounding lights in the space, it is essentially a space that situates the listener with no distractions from the experience of listening. A bench in the center of the room allows the experience to echo in a sonic atmosphere, an immersive sonic space with no place to escape to. (The visual–sound space will be discussed in more detail in the next section.)

Methodology for Approaching the Relationship between Sound and Imagery in Chinese Aesthetics: Sonic–Visual Space

The exhibition titled Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm has two different installation designs for two different exhibition spaces. The first version involved an isolated sound space and an independent visual wall. The installation design basically focused on transforming poetry into sound waves in one’s mind in this dim sound space. I created a series of paintings to transform the visualization of the sound waves into symbolic paintings outside the acoustic space. The process was more fluid, traversing across the physical space. Meanwhile, the viewers extend each part of the work to connect the two spaces. In the second version, 听·见·韵 [Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm] (Liu 2022b), with visual and sound components in the same isolated space, the surround speakers and open-back headphones layer the acoustic patterns together, synchronized with the movement of the brush strokes and the rhythm of the ink in the paintings. For viewers, the sound and visual components are mirroring one another; they can see/hear the connection directly in one space. Sound is in the painting, and painting is in the sound. It was an integrated sonic–visual space for the visitors to experience physically.

The initial aims for both designs were similar — to evoke the relationship between sound and imagery and, more specifically, to employ this deep connection in the context of lyric aesthetics, as discussed in the previous section, between the verbal and the pictorial world. In the process of making and presenting art, the completely different layouts also carried on this discussion of the necessity of an integrated sonic–visual physical space in this research. Further, I am attempting to mobilize the physical space of the gallery to mix the acoustics and the visuals, in order to test whether this methodology of employing this integration of sound and visuals, poetry and painting, in Chinese lyric aesthetics can be applied in contemporary creative artistic practices.

Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm (2022)

Sound and imagery in separate spaces.

Paint the Rhythm I and II

Paint the Rhythm I (video, 6 minutes and 44 seconds, in Liu 2022a) is an attempt to represent the singing of poetry in ‘real time’ — a form of performed visual transcription using Chinese painting as a visual representation of the rhythmic vocal patterns in the sound. The video shows the process of drawing the sound patterns while listening to the sound work. I created the Chinese landscape paintings only with the sound patterns of the rhythmic voice I heard, discarding the content of the lyric.

A television monitor to the left, with headphones, is playing the video, with a column of paintings from the ceiling to the floor to the right, presenting the paintings from Paint the Rhythm II. The monitor is nearly the same size as the painting, and the column of paintings represents the sequential process as a flowing vertical column.

Paint the Rhythm II (ink on rice paper, 68 x 34 cm, in Liu 2022b) continues the experiment of I, offering a kind of rhythmic landscape from the accumulation of painted sonic gestures. The paintings are all slightly different, as the sensation of listening and the motions of the gestures are different each time. The series of paintings is presented as a column from the ceiling to the floor, which represents the repetition of the rhythmic patterns visually, weaving the visual components into sonic patterns.

The Visualization of the Rhythmic Patterns

I have been professionally trained in Chinese painting, especially in freehand brushwork, as 大写意 (dà xiě yì) in Chinese. The ‘大’ in this word, which can be understood as ‘grand’ in this context, often expresses the grandness of personality and the profoundness of the mind. The ‘写’ can be understood as ‘writing’, which is different from the ‘painting’ or ‘drawing’ of Western painting; rather, it is based on the spirits of ‘painting and calligraphy sharing the same origin’ (in part one), which can be understood as adopting the method of calligraphy or, more specifically, cursive script [3] to write the shape, the atmosphere, and the lyricism. The ‘意’ in the word stands for the yijing (意境) of the art work, also an essential aspect of Chinese aesthetics. My approach to the fundamental logic of artistic practice is profoundly influenced by freehand brushwork. Like the rhythmic flow in my sound performance works, freehand brushwork is another influence on me as an artist coming from a background of Chinese traditional painting. Thus, in the progress of this research, I have worked in depth with Chinese painting in Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm, as the primary means for the visualization of the sonic rhythm as well as the visual representation of the rhythmic patterns. Later on, I also adopted the methodology and spiritual core of freehand brushwork in the creation of the ultimate integrated sonic–visual space of 听·见·韵 [Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm] (2022). As an integral part of my artistic practice, as well as this research project, freehand Chinese painting is undoubtedly deeply embedded in the experimental sonic–visual integration of art-making.

听·见·韵 [Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm] (2022)

The Sonic–Visual Space

In this exhibition (Liu 2022b), both Hearing Rhythm (the sound works) and Seeing Rhythm (the visual works) were presented in the same space. With less physical space for the sound installation, and more depth for the visual components, I designed another version of installation. Originally, the sound and the visual components were separated and woven together by the audience. In this version, the sound and visuals are connected together not only spatially, but also within the single space, to heighten the sonic and visual experience.

The video piece Paint the Rhythm I is projected on the back wall of the space. Two columns of paintings presenting Paint the Rhythm II, hanging from the ceiling on both sides of the gallery, extending to the center of the floor, are gathered with the projected video, creating a three-dimensional visual space for viewers, as well as offering more spatial depth for the visual experience. The gentle breeze across the space moves the light rice papers in the air, making this visual ‘box’ much more vivid.

A pair of ‘invisible’ speakers play both The Sad Zither (锦瑟) and Yumeiren (Tune): Spring Flower and Autumn Moon (虞美人·春花秋月何时了), to make sure they are the first thing the audience experiences when they enter the space. Visually, the two columns of paintings also work as the visual joint between the two components, to relate the endless imagery to the overwhelming voice. Acoustically, the open-back headphones add sonic layers of the overall sound space to the visuals and vice versa, bringing the two parts of this multifaceted work closer together. This space design brings a completely different visual and sonic experience of this work.

Installation Design for 听·见·韵 [Hearing Rhythm, Seeing Rhythm], with Sketches