Adrian Wong 王浩然: Troglodyte See the Light
February 2012, at Osage Kwun Tong, Hong Kong
Wong created a number of speaking mechatronic puppets for this show. The voice was his, exploring untypical and absurd uses of language. The works were ‘packaged’ as funny shaped creatures, which was a good way to engage the visitors. If one looked beyond the first glace ‘funny’ impression, and listened to the (recorded) sounds these puppets were making, one could dive into another level of meaning. Language as a representation of an inner mental state, language as sound, and the meaning of the sound of language (not of words) – these are some keywords that come into my mind.
One work which particularly spoke to me was a cucumber-shaped brown-colored creature with little hands and legs attached, that was helplessly rolling around on its back, unable to get up. While doing this, it produced mutterings that were not recognizable as language. After reading the provided text, the visitor understood: Wong recorded his talking, and then edited out all understandable words, leaving in only the ‘parasitic’ sounds that a person makes in between words. The result was a ‘proto-language’, an amalgamation of sounds that precede or follow words. Once listening to the sounds, I caught myself waiting for the moment when a meaningful word would appear, but this moment never came. The moment of ‘freezing’ in the unfinished state of potential meaning created an imaginary space for the visitor to think beyond the present, outlining a direction (‘towards words’) without giving any simple instantly gratifying answers.