No Sense of Touch - A solo exhibition by Cheuk Wing-nam 觸不感 卓穎嵐個人展覽
[FP members' solo series 據點成員作品發表系列] (Please scroll down for English)
阿博有一個陋習，他不習慣與人接觸，是身體上的接觸。在地鐵上手碰到手也會閃開，在巴士上有人坐在隔壁也會顯得不自然。認識新朋友時，永遠不會握手，而是躹躬你好。然而他每一天搭巴士時，坐在巴士的上層，看到窗外有情侶手拖手時，心裡就微略忐忑，總會有種想觸碰別人的感覺。他已經忘記了人的體溫，忘記了人的心跳，忘記了自己也是一個活生生的人。他沈迷於電腦和數字世界裡。但是越避開與人接觸，就越想和人接觸，接觸變成了一種奢侈品。阿博開始製造另一個自己，一個只會搵人撞的自己，他也是叫阿博(下文為了方便分辨，稱為阿博二世)。阿博這樣做無非想抒發自己想接觸人的衝動。然後，阿博和阿博二世不斷尋找一些物件去互相接觸。在這個數碼世界裡，尋找物件去互相接觸是一件不容易的事，但他仍然想去做。其實他心底層是希望和其他人接觸，尋找那些記憶已模糊的體溫觸感和脈搏…他最近對小提琴有興趣，因為小提琴本身就是靠接觸才會有聲音的樂器，某天他從垃圾堆裡拾到一部被捨棄的小提琴。從尺寸來看，應該是小孩玩倦了的玩具。有一天，他逛鴨寮街時發現到一部二手卡式錄音機。靈機一觸，幻想如果他們的接觸交錯了，不知效果如何？阿博想將小提琴的音域改變，不再是局限於五線譜上的音符，而是更貼近人、更有觸感的聲音。卡式錄音機的磁頭是十分脆弱的零件，必須將錄音帶平均速度地轉動才能令到磁頭讀到錄音帶的磁性。他反覆思量和研究，他望住了阿博二世，覺得可以像阿博二世般用摩打去推動錄音帶的轉動。於是他嘗試盡量保留卡式錄音機的外型用不同大小齒輪、不同長短和彈性的傳動帶、不同轉速和尺寸的摩打、不同長度的鐵軸、錄音帶等等作無限的配對測試，重造了一枝新的小提琴弓。阿博開著了摩打，將新的小提琴弓放在加了磁頭的小提琴上。他聽到人說話的聲音，但不知道說些什麼，像是喃喃自語的聲音，是回帶的聲音。他從聲音回想了過去，他也改變了這部小提琴的命運。
展期：2016年6月18日（六）至7月6日 （三） 逢一休 6月19日(日) / 4:00pm /
特備節目一： 分享節目 － 新媒體 Debug 的樂與怒
7月2日 (六) / 8:00pm /
特備節目二： 觸不感聲音碰撞測試
P.S. 阿博二世很容易疲倦，猶如阿博本人使用畢生精力去寫程式一樣，阿博二世也需要大量休息。如發現阿博二世休息的話，請餵佢食電。
藝術家簡介 卓穎嵐是本地同時從事聲音雕塑、新媒體藝術創作和程式設計的跨媒體藝術家。畢業於香港浸會大學視覺藝術碩士課程，主修藝術創作與延伸媒體。擅長新媒體藝術裝置、聲音雕塑，尤其關注從光與影、聲音與空間之間進行創作及表演。
‘No Sense of Touch’- Cheuk Wing-nam Solo Exhibition
Bo has a bit of a foible. He feels uncomfortable interacting with others, particularly with any form of body contact. He can't stand that slight accidental touch with strangers on a subway train. He feels awkward if anyone sits next to him in the bus. He never shakes hands with new friends; he only nods. Still, every day when he sits on the upper deck of a bus and notices couples walking by hand-in-hand down the street, his heart beats. He yearns for that experience of physical contact, be it the grab of a hand, a soft touch of the skin of other’s... He has forgotten what the warmth from a human body feels like. He has forgotten the rhythm of heartbeats. He has forgotten that he is also one living human like everyone else. He begins indulging himself in the virtual world of computers and digital objects. Yet the harder he tries to keep a distance from others, the more he craves for physical contact with them. Physical contact has become a luxury he could not afford. Bo creates an alter-self, a virtual self that would seek to bump into other people on purpose, which he calls Bo II. Bo II is nothing but an expression of Bo’s impulse to have contact with others. Bo and Bo II collaborate restlessly to seek for objects they may collide with. This becomes endless, unfulfilled and recurrent adventures in the digital world. He longs for interaction. Deep down, the drive to recall the forgotten sense of touch intensifies. Recently, Bo develops a new interest in the violin because the violin is a musical instrument that emits sound through “contact.” One day, he picked up a discarded violin from the garbage collection point. Its size suggests that it is the kind for a child. Another day, he found a used cassette tape recorder when roaming through Ap Liu Street. An idea came to him. How about exchanging the contact points of the cassette recorder and the violin to see what would happen? He changed the range of the violin’s sound so it no longer follows the standard pitch of a 12-tone scale in Western music, but also to include sounds outside that scale – sounds closer to the everyday person, as well as more tactile sounds. The magnetic head of a cassette recorder is a very fragile part. The tape must be played at a stable speed in order to allow the head to “read” the magnetic signals on a cassette tape. Through trials and errors, he studied the mechanics of a violin and a cassette recorder. He turns to Bo II for help. “Perhaps we can use a motor like Bo II to drive the tapes…” He preserves the appearance of the cassette recorder but plays with different sizes of gears, different lengths of elastic belts, and different speeds and sizes of motors, different lengths of axles, tapes and so on to try out unlimited combination of parts to make an extraordinary violin bow.Bo switches on the new machine he made and puts on the violin a new violin bow with a magnetic head installed. He hears the sound of people talking though he can’t figure out the content. It is like murmurs, or perhaps it is just the sound of a tape rewinding. The new sound invokes personal memories. As well, it changes the violin’s destiny.
Exhibition Period: 18th June (Sat) - 6th July 2016 (Wed) [closed on Mondays] (There will be no opening reception.)
19th June (Sun) / 4:00pm / Special Program 1: Sharing - Ups and Downs in Debugging New Media Program
2nd July (Sat) / 8:00pm / Special Program 2: No Sense of Touch Sound Collision Inspection
Postscript:
Bo II gets tired easily. Dedicating his whole life to replicate Bo’s desires, Bo II needs a lot of rest. If you discover Bo II is resting, please feed him batteries.
About the Artist Cheuk Wing-nam is a cross-media artist who devotes herself to developing her artwork with new concepts of sound-sculpting and physical computing for interactivity. She received postgraduate training in Master of Visual Arts (Studio Arts and Extended Media) from the Hong Kong Baptist University.
