Workshop: Cage and its Transcendence
Date: 14 December 2008
Time: 10-11am
Participants: Chan Yung Shen, Hee Li Jie, Lim Jun Hong, Saw Khe Xin
Details: Cage and its Transcendence is a workshop inspired through the study and analysis of John Cage's 4'33'' silent piece. Instead of learning through the eyes or visual perception, participants will be taught to learn and draw with the sense of hearing. Participants are free to experiment and articulate. The purpose of this workshop is to provide an alternative method of perceiving, also hoping to train their observation skill.
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The participants entered the room with smiles and cheers, having no idea why was there a radio in front of the table, and this being a beginners workshop, straight away we went on to exercise with a very economic description of the activities within this 60-minutes without procrastinating.
Before getting them to the radio and earphones, some less subtle warm-up exercises would be conducted to give them a purview of ideas regarding learning without seeing. It went well and fun to me.
The fact that there was no visual reference actually opened up a wider horizon for them to explore more with their own creativity, hence the artworks they produced bearing the process-of-thinking, not just imitating reality. Their artworks were interestingly varied but conceptually similar.
Also on how I came up with the idea for this workshop; I remembered attending a talk by the local conceptual artist Yap Sau Bin in Galeri Petronas where he got to talk about some of his quite minimalistic works, explaining how visual limitations can foster imagination of the viewers (displaying more by showing less), it is the Gestalt theory, I thought it was great and transautomatic.
When it went on to the earphones and radio, I played the cd (compilation of excerpts of music, noise and even sound art) and the participants were very serious and focus, in which I am glad. Each lasts for 15 seconds. Things came out unexpectedly as it moved on to abstract sound art.
Date: 14 December 2008
Time: 10-11am
Participants: Chan Yung Shen, Hee Li Jie, Lim Jun Hong, Saw Khe Xin
Details: Cage and its Transcendence is a workshop inspired through the study and analysis of John Cage's 4'33'' silent piece. Instead of learning through the eyes or visual perception, participants will be taught to learn and draw with the sense of hearing. Participants are free to experiment and articulate. The purpose of this workshop is to provide an alternative method of perceiving, also hoping to train their observation skill.
---
The participants entered the room with smiles and cheers, having no idea why was there a radio in front of the table, and this being a beginners workshop, straight away we went on to exercise with a very economic description of the activities within this 60-minutes without procrastinating.
Before getting them to the radio and earphones, some less subtle warm-up exercises would be conducted to give them a purview of ideas regarding learning without seeing. It went well and fun to me.
The fact that there was no visual reference actually opened up a wider horizon for them to explore more with their own creativity, hence the artworks they produced bearing the process-of-thinking, not just imitating reality. Their artworks were interestingly varied but conceptually similar.
Also on how I came up with the idea for this workshop; I remembered attending a talk by the local conceptual artist Yap Sau Bin in Galeri Petronas where he got to talk about some of his quite minimalistic works, explaining how visual limitations can foster imagination of the viewers (displaying more by showing less), it is the Gestalt theory, I thought it was great and transautomatic.
When it went on to the earphones and radio, I played the cd (compilation of excerpts of music, noise and even sound art) and the participants were very serious and focus, in which I am glad. Each lasts for 15 seconds. Things came out unexpectedly as it moved on to abstract sound art.
Lim Jun Hong listening to a noise. He has good imagination skill and likes to depict motions.
This is Hee Li Jie listening to another noise. Based on the one of the noise samples, he drew two raining clouds which I like it a lot.
Chan Yung Shen contemplating. His drawings are comical yet minimalistic.
The 4 year-old petite Saw Khe Xin who was intimidated by the even smaller earphones.
Explaining the post-modern idea of 'silence' as music and can be 'inspirational'....and I have visuals of a clock, fan, someone knocking etc. How cool?
*If you are interested in viewing their artworks, do come and visit us at the end of the project where we will have a small display. We will announce the date and time of the display and a talk will be held at the end of this project.
4 comments:
I'm just curious.
What motivated you to this project?
ur students are really cute..
dun let me c themm..
haha..i will catch them and take their photo...
i like Chan Yung Shen xD
Many things inspired me before I thought of doing this small project. Significant one like the CAIS project, LAMU in KTM plus some other similar 'exhibitions' and getting to read Piyadasa's Towards The Mystical Reality manifesto (1974...a classic) was definitely awe inspiring.
I think there is if I may say an 'exigency' of arts in Malaysia where art practitioners are trying various attempts to engage the people with arts. (exigency because the international art scene is dominated by the Western countries...of course it is expanding now to Japan, China, Indonesia etc, but the comparison is yet massive and the questions arrived to us on how can 'we' reach there? The 'we' includes the non-art practitioners/audience. All of us need to learn to appreciate arts, not just the artists.)
And the so called 'general' knowledge of the arts is pretty Western-centric which gave many locals an impression that art is a commodity or a luxury rather than a subject of life or of events close to life. I hope applications of art in life can be exemplified and taught in this project, and I am doing it through early education. Everything starts from education, simply because our local government does not appreciate arts, hence the promotion of arts in Malaysia is mediocre and quite despicable.
Many of us failed to realize the importance of arts in life which plays a role in the shaping of Identity and Culture (both traditional and modern). I think identity and culture are the 'face' of a being; that whatever made me Me, adheres to my upbringing, social context and cultural context. And art is actually all about that - it promotes culture or an identity, it documents history and the social context of the particular period, it narrates life, it criticizes politics, it speaks aloud etc.
A country without arts is flat and tasteless.
when the display will be held???
you have done a lot weeiii... ...^^
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