sound/video installation
* Credit: C-LAB 臺灣當代文化實驗場Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB)
* Photography：One Work Goway LU
"Shattered Night March of the Shimmering Raven" originated from my father's long-term playlist. The earliest source of this playlist was the government flat in the center of Kuala Lumpur where I lived when I was a child. The flat is located on the edge of the city center during the British colonial period. It is within walking distance of the place where the country declared independence. From the balcony, you can see the prison built by the British. Every day, clear calls of prayer are heard from the loudspeakers of the nearby mosque.
In the changing times, this flat has gradually become an unattended wasteland on the edge of the bustling and gorgeous city. My father's playlist began to be established when he lived in the flat for more than ten years. From cassettes to the current online streaming, it seems that time has stopped and continues to this day in the torrent of changes in sound media. The playlist period of the government flat was always accompanied by the crows outside the balcony, which was especially loud in the early morning and evening. Crows, which have long become a city landscape, are actually not native to Malaysia. It is said that during the British colonial period, British merchants introduced them from Sri Lanka to the Malay Peninsula at that time in order to solve the problem of caterpillar pests in plantations. In more than 100 years, crows have gone from being outsiders to becoming local species. However, due to their large numbers, they are prone to spreading diseases, and have been shot in large numbers by the city government.
My father's playlist, which sounded in the crows' voices, is full of broken and incoherent language and music styles. This playlist seems to reflect the complex life experience of Malaysia where he lives, and at the same time implies a certain historical spectrum of time and social politics. Through the crows, my father's playlist is translated into a code and woven into a new sound.
Through the government flat where I lived in the 1980s and 1990s as coordinates, "Shattered Night March of the Shimmering Raven" is composed of seemingly daily and broken soundscapes, suggesting the undercurrent of identity politics and colonial history. The crows in the sound scene are metaphors for the fluid identity of the local and the other or multiple overlaps. But who is the other, who is the family, the community, what is the illusion, and are these all illusions?
*Production Credit
Music Composition｜юлия
Sound Mixing and Raven’s sound installation｜Feng Chih Ming
3D Printed Raven｜Her Lab Space
Carpenter for the Raven’s Stand｜Hsu Tsung Jen
Found Sound from News Reel｜Gurkha Active in Malaya (1949), Merdeka (1957)
Original Moon Image from Wikipedia, Near-Full moon on 11/14/16, 8" reflector, direct imaging, 6 hours before greatest full moon, provided by Tom Ruen