Day 09 (Cage and its Transcendence-replacement)

Workshop: Cage and its Transcendence (replacement)
Date: 20 December 2008
Time: 1-2pm
Participants: Chong Jun Kiat, Lennon Ng, Ng Sin-Ee, Annabelle Yap
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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Some students can't make it on 14 Dec so I did a replacement for them.

The exercises and the music were the same. Do refer to the above link for workshop details. And here are some pictures of them:

Chong Jun Kiat who seemed to pay more attention to the radio.

Lennon Ng who did some pretty imaginative drawings during the workshop.

Lennon's sister - Sin-Ee. Doing alright.

The very attentive and obedient Annabelle Yap.

Leaving them to surmise, they thought I was playing a fool; sticking their ears onto the speaker, disbelieved in the 'silent piece' while I disregarded their complaints and kept asking them to listen carefully.

List of samples.

There was actually (to me) quite a big difference considering their reactions to the music compared to the previous group on 14 Dec. This batch embarked on a more physical approach, so the silent piece was difficult for them to realize themselves before I clarified and illustrated what the previous group had drawn. Even for the music, instead of drawing what they could feel, they inclined to draw the instruments who produced the sound...turned out like a guessing game.

It wasn't wrong though.

Day 03

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.

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.

The last music played was nevertheless John Cage 4'33''(silent piece). They prompted many questions despite prior to this I have told them not to say a word but to draw once I've pressed the stop button. It got me into explaining...

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.