“Formant: Forms of Listening to Forms”

Featuring divergent works of sound art and performance, this exhibition takes its name from the peak in the spectral envelope of sound. A formant’s role in the overall perception of sound quality and its dependence on the resonant environment render it an apt metaphor for the emerging genre of sound art in China. Organized by two artists, Yin Yi and Luca Forcucci, both of whom also present works here, the project includes installations, performances, and public lectures, all aiming to bring greater awareness to sound as art.

Sprawled out along the walls is Yan Jun’s Still, 2011–12, with its tiny “speaker flowers” that play site-specific recorded sounds and music. The endeavor of orienting the audience to listen intently rather than just hearing is perhaps lost in the lofty space, though. Elsewhere, Yin’s You Can Listen to the Same River Indefinitely, 2012, presents a field recording of a flowing river that plays on and reverses Heraclitus’s cryptic aphorism on flow and change. Also displacing the sonic sense of place is Lawrence English’s Slender Blue, 2010, which presents a sound landscape from an Antarctic field base. The dilated time of the accompanying video forces the viewer’s attention on the otherworldly and sublime soundscape conjured.

For the performances, Forcucci’s Under and Upper Grounds, 2012, which occurred on April 14, evoked a contrastive sonic portrait of church bells, trains, busking musicians, and muffled bass from nightclubs on a Berlin Sunday morning. Also of note was Yan’s performance on the same day, which visualized his wall of noise through the throbbing vibrations of speakers laid out on the table. For those circling around, smothered by the unforgiving noise, this was sound made concrete.