Exhibition Title: <Tillandsia in the Lost Garden> by aRing

Prelude Stage of Sound Diary No.6 <Tillandsia to Nabillera>

Venue: nakedHub Gallery

Address: G/F, 5–13 New Street, Seung Wan, Hong Kong

               香港上環新街  5-13號地下

Dates：  November 17–30 (9 am to 6 pm)

Opening Night: November 17th @ 6:30pm (Performance starts at 7pm)

Improvisational Dance with Live Sound and Yoga Workshop: November 18th (time TBA)

Presented by: Sonic Arts and Culture

 

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About the collection:

Introducing a new work by the creative, genre-disrupting Korean sound artist aRing (a.k.a. Irene Eunyoung Lee) (b.1974), <Prelude Stage – Tillandsia in the Lost Garden> presents an introductory installation & performance artwork, part of a progressively developing, multi-year project named <Tillandsia to Nabillera> by the artist. On the opening night, aRing will present a live-performance and collection of photographs mapping the endeavor through a series of bodily practices and sound organizations, to craft an inventive form of visual music  called “Physi-Musiking”. In <Prelude Stage>, aRing has created a visual presentation of her texts and sounds using still camera shots of physical movements with wearing vivid silk fabrics. Although originally intended to design a multi-channel audio installation, this has been modified into a mixed, two-channel format due to the circumstances of the co-working venue, and will be experienced using a headphone. The ‘Sound Diary No.6 <Tillandsia to Nabillera>’ series aims to create installations of physically-driven abstract images to emphasize the purity of sound/music experienced in 360 degrees, in a total of five different stages, over a period of two years. ‘Sound Diary No.6 <Tillandsia and Nabillera>’ is a series of proposals for installations of physi-musiking situations (i.e. abstract auditory-visual experiences generated from the movements of physical bodies and textiles, emphasizing the purity of organized sound). These are to be experienced in new productions presenting various willed yet spontaneous encounters, on a pilgrimage of self-study achieved through the combination of sound, movement, and vision. Such encounters are comprised of interactions with new people, environments, and technologies developing into several flowing stages (ideally within a mobile dome or sphere). All these situations consist of three basic elements: sound layers—the sonic “seeds”—are consciously organized according to textual keywords, musical expressions, and field recording samples; visual layers—the spatial

“environments”—are moving images of color palettes expressing the emotions of texts and/or the juxtaposition of video/photo images with the contemporary world experienced during the pilgrimage journey; and physical layers—the human “sprouts”—are reactions or

elements that occur when other creative or audience influences are encountered. As a result, the narrative sound layers will be revealed as reference sources to each (modal) human-catalyst. The instructions on how to create junctures between these situations

consist of both directed and open approaches to creative production that require mutual-conciliated agreements between the creative participants.

 

Commonly, plants root in soil or water for the absorption of necessary nutrients; however, Tillandsia (a.k.a. airplant – a genus of around 650 species of evergreen, perennial flowering plants) can live without rooting, as most of them are epiphytes (they grow without soil, while attached to other plants) or aerophytes (being air plants having no roots and capable of growing on loose desert soils). The word “Nabillera” is taken from the Korean poet Ji-hoon Cho's (1920–1968) famous poem ‘The Monk's Dance’ (Seungmoo), which is usually danced by a woman. Invented by the poet, the word “Nabillera” describes something fluttering, and

critics say that the word shows the transformation of a hat, an inanimate object, into a butterfly, a live object. So it is 'butterfly-like', but not a butterfly itself. The metaphorical implications of the title heighten the progression of strengthening one’s inner world and

unleashing the power and knowledge contained within the state of flux, regardless of the outer world. The humanitarian ideal in the title portrays the urge to champion the cause of the downtrodden, the victims of circumstance and injustice in our society.

 

 

Artist Background:

aRing (Irene Eunyoung Lee) is a sound artist based in Korea. She holds a PhD in Culture Technology from KAIST (Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) (2017), an MM in Music Technology (New York University), a BM in Music Production Engineering (Berklee College of Music), and was trained in classical singing from the age of twelve until she graduated from the Seoul Arts High School. aRing has invented and presented original Total Sound Art Theatre  performances in Korea and has been the recipient of several prizes and grants from, amongst others, the Art Council of Korea, the Seoul Foundation Arts and

Culture, and KOCCA. In 2016 she stepped down from her professorship in Korea in order to work on preparing her new physi-musiking artwork with which to communicate with the world through the practice of art. The launch of ‘Prelude Stage <Tillandsia in the Lost Garden>’ in Hong Kong manifests her undertaking to achieve a new artistic journey to triumph over prejudice against the underprivileged state of sound art and of artists, as well as the extremely unpredictable circumstances and injustices of our society (e.g. with respect to the political situation in Korea).

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aRing uses the components of music and various media formats to portray delicate occurrences in her life (based on storytelling) that have affected her, and have led her to be attentive to herself and others. Behind each work is an extensive process of introspection and exploration, involving an initial sketching of the endeavor through a series of written texts, tangible performances, and free form sound organizations. ‘Sound Diary’ (2004) and ‘Sweet Blessing’ (2006), for example, presented original organized sound materials (published in audio CD format), together with paper objects and texts in the artist’s handwriting (365 and 100 pages, respectively) installed for the premier of the exhibition/performance. The handwritten texts revealed her introspection and contemplation during the process of making corporeal of the artworks. ‘RockMong’ (2006–09) developed the original novelette, ‘Jin’s Blue Closet’, into a theatrical presentation of dance, video, and sound collected from the ‘3 Preliminary Performances’, that were presented at the KAIST (Daejeon, Korea), St. Sulpis, Centre Pompidou, Colonnes de Buren in the Cour d'Honneur of the Palais-Royal (Paris, France), and Design Center (Linz, Austria) – places that the artist visited during the course of writing her novelette in 2006 and 2008. On the night of the premier of RockMong, aRing placed paper-human figures in the large theatre as a bitter satire on a society of rigid conformity which lacked interest in new art; she made the 500 paper-audiences to be seated when she was performing in the 800-seat Boryung Art Center Theaters. Most recently, in ‘Mung’ (2010) and ‘Now’s Tomorrow’ (2012), aRing’s Sound Diary project incorporated poetic or essay-like texts and physical theatre to transcribe organized sounds into expressions of movement. As she is interested in the way visual and physical movements can connote texts and sounds, as well as the effect of synergetic enhancement through the combination of abstract visuals and music/organized sound, aRing has further explored their pluralistic implications and nuances. Resembling a yogi, aRing practices physical asana and sound artwork in her daily life, to create a visual and auditory archive that ultimately addresses the title of the Sound Diary project. In this collection aRing interchangeably crosses between the movement of colors on fabrics and of sound in poetry, building a work based on the musically organized attributes of the human internal and external journey and their dualistic value as both calls for delight and acidity.