Cradle (installation) (2019) at Maryland Institute College of Art

Hemp strings, stones, amplifier, speakers

522 x 510 x 771cm (length x width x height)

This installation creates a range of noise in this exhibition space. Instructions for both the audience and myself in this performance include:

  1. Scrubbing fabric near a microphone
  2. Hitting stones on the landing of the staircase near the amplifier
  3. Creating white noise sounds (the audience can change the volume and the Hertz) with small speakers on the ceiling
  4. Hitting stones, boards and the fence near the amplifier

My second installation took place in MICA’s the Lazarus center at the staircase. The staircase to the basement, replicating humans going into a cave like Lascaux, which alludes to the cycle of life and death. Moreover, the staircase environment imitates a womb with the passageway to a lower level, much like birth canal. I used hemp and attached a fence as well as bi-color strings, which represented arterial and venous blood pathways. I dyed the strings red and yellow with water extracted from plants and insects. The overall shape of the sound wave expressed the filtering phenomenon of sounds bouncing. With respect to Japanese Mono-ha artists and Lee Ufan’s artwork Open Dimension in an installation at the Hirshhorn Museum, it also expressed the string and stones.

The installation includes instructions for the audience to activate their own emotions. Luigi Russolo creates a noise machine (not music) in a room but I express it in a different way.

The audience produces white noise near the two speakers hanging from the ceiling. Furthermore, the audience can play sounds using river stones and the wire fence by hand where it is then amplified. Ancestors from the Stone Age also made music by hitting stones. The musical installation is intended to evoke a primitive emotion stemming from memories deep within the subconscious. It is well known that babies hear white noise while inside the womb.