Soundpocket: Around 聽在
Earlier this year, I have spent a few months in Hong Kong. One of the things I brought back was a “catalogue” of the “Around / 聽在” sound art festival that took place in Hong Kong in 2009. I recently finished reading and listening through it (it contains a CD). I was quite impressed.
The catalogue is a compilation of writings in different styles by different authors. Some are diary entries from participating musicians, some are reviews of individual performances, and some are personal stories that connect only through the name of the participating artist. It is a big variety that is all brought together by the topic of listening as a conscious activity. The theoretical texts set the stage by outlining approaches to listening and historical perspectives, while the personal texts provide accounts of listening experiences from our daily life experience. In addition, the personal accounts allow the reader to look into the mind of the musician, which opens up a new set of information about the sound works on the attached CD. I would recommend listening to the CD first before reading the book, then during reading the book (as a ‘soundtrack’ to the related chapter) and then after reading the book. Each time the listening experience will be quite different.
I see this book as a wonderful introduction to the world of sound art and listening. I have not been to the festival itself, but I still could really enjoy this book to the fullest. I think the underlying reason that makes this book engaging is the amount of subjectivity that was allowed in the book. Listening is always a subjective experience and the book gives space to these personal experiences. This makes it easy for the reader to relate to it and compare it to his own experience. Rather than being an exact historical account of what happened, the book transmits a state of mind – a collective memory.
Last but not least, the form of the book supports its content. It has a very minute and very clean design, with attention paid to the smallest details. Texts come in the original language plus English and Chinese translations. This means an individual reader skips a lot of pages, but I see it as another metaphor for the richness and variety of sounds, this time on the level of different languages.
***Contributing writers 作者: Akio Suzuki 鈴木昭男, Black 素黑 , Carlo Fossati , Cédric Maridet , Dajuin Yao 姚大鈞, Edwin Lo 羅潤庭, Eugene Tan, Felix Hess, Jérôme Joy, Kawai Shiu 蕭家偉, Lau Gukzik 劉掬色, Mike Cooper, William Lane, Yan Jun 顏峻
Publisher 出版: soundpocket 聲音掏腰包
Editor 編輯: Yeung Yang 楊陽370 pages + 1 CD of 12 recordings (75’42’’)
ISBN 978-988-19480-1-4
in English and Chinese + French, Italian and Japanese
全書中英文＋部分法語、意大利語及日語文章
More information about the book on the publisher’s website: http://www.soundpocket.org.hk/site/?p=487