Artist Statement for Semester-End-Project "Ohohoh?"

Frances Ho Man Shan

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SM 4143 Sonic Art and the History of Sounds and Noises

Artist Statement for Semester-End-Project "Ohohoh?"

"Ohohoh?" is a series of experimental audio dreamscapes that explore the artistic possibilities and potential in one's dreams; and the representational power of the found sonic materials. This series is formed by seven of my personal dreamscapes entitled as "Dad and His New House", "Bro", "Cobee", "Mates", "My friend's Ex-Boy", "Mr. S" and "My Boy and His Red X White stripe Hat" from Mid-November to Mid-December. Both of the dreams and sonic materials are considered as found footage in this series and the work is presented in the formal of a simple personal blog which, the dreamscapes are written in words and also sound compositions.

First of all, The main reason of creating a series of dreamscapes is the mysterious qualities within. In our history, dreams have not been perfectly identified and explained by sciences and the meaning behind is still fascinating and attractive towards our attention. According to Wikipedia, the most common explanation of dreams would be "The unorganized succession of thoughts passing through mind in the absence of consciousness." Dreams are actually the found footage of oneself that formed by personal experiences and are projection of one's desires no matter how weird they appeared to be. Without being superstitiously believe in those dream analyze myths, this series plans to identify one's dreams in audio compositions that inspired and mixed with key scenes occurred in the dreams.

What's more, inspired also by the sound artist Janet Cardiff's dreamscapes work- "The Cabinet of Curiousness," the creative possibilities of one's dreams are revealed in response to one's memories. Personally dreams are with very less color and seems getting more and more blurry once I wake up so presenting my dreamscapes in sound has a stronger impact than visual images. And through the representation of sound, it seems easier to draw instinctive reactions and thoughts of the scenes of dreams which, are unique and unrepeatable in life. This work reveal its' potential to be developed as an installation/some experimental performances in the future.

Well, there is no one comprehensive and absolute definition of sonic art since applying it in different ways cause very different ends. Sonic art is about value judgment with ones' frames of references. There are no rights/wrongs as the absolute answers within the perspectives of how one's focusing in their creation, listening and hearing. Explore the creative possibilities and potential of everything that can be heard is the most important thing in this art form. It also engages with a variety of subjects such as acoustics, noise, environmental sound, found footage and audio technology in both analog and digital forms etc. And in the contemporary practices, experimental sonic art works such as Dada sound poems and other surrealism sound works are very crucial in the usage of sonic art with a social questioning and challenging role. Sonic art is no longer a purely art form but also can be used as a response and talk to the society.

Documentation of "Ohohoh?"

Well, the outcome of this work looks pretty simple yet a lot of unexpected errors and difficulties were overcame during the process. At the very first beginning, collecting dreams were not as smooth as I thought. I found out that the details of most dreams became very blurry once I woke and it was not easy to have some quite complete dreams written in details. And people do not dream everyday right? I was not so sure if I should go on...

Then I found that there were actually 7 pieces of dreams written down with quite complete details so I decided to have the key words pointed out and think of how each audio dreamscapes can be mixed with their artistic potential. Here are the initial mind-mapping process,

And during the sound sources picking and mixing processes, there were some frustrating moments too. Since some sample rate problems occurred(googled later on), 2 finalised tracks cannot be exported from Soundtrack pro with their best sonic qualities in mp3 format and after some researches in google I decided to change their format in wave which, causing me this beginner another concern of how to put those bigger sound files online in this blog...

I didn't want to simple putting all those download links here since I wanted the audience to have  the words read and composition heard at the same time. I was trying to hosting all the sound files in Sendspace so to get the links for the codes allowing a online music player embed in website...However, the hosting system was extemely weak and overloaded that the link could only for the download purposes but a strong and stable link for html.

I was so pissed off and not sure if it was the problem of the music play html codes so I decided to make those tracks into mov file and send them to youtube for some vaild video links instead. 

Yet those mov files took forever to be compressed and successfully uploaded due to their abnormal giant sizes-from the average 2 mb sound file each became the 1 GB mov file. I was feeling so hopeless yet I did not want to give it my rule of keeping a vaild music player in each of the dreamscapes so I went back to the point of mp3 hosting sites and eventually decided to use the ftp of scm server. THANKS GOD THOSE LINKS WORK WELL WITH THE MUSIC PLAYER CODES!!!!!! THEY CAN BE PLAYED ONLINE FINALLY. I was like an idoit and decided to stick to school server forever! The scm server is much stable!!!!!!!! 

However the music players do not work so well in this blog since they kind of making the blogger server overloaded...........................................Then I decided to make my own webpages by using Dreamweaver yet I did not consider the best way to present this work since this blogger site is originally have all the daily details recorded this month and it's part of the work! Anyways I did give a try in making webpages in order to smoothen the audio tracks playing speed.

Eventually I gave up the web-site making process since I found it not the very original way that came to my mind while starting this project and I shouldn't change my rule easily just for some conveniences. I decided to keep this blog but I am also figuring a better way to access this blog with the music player embedded.

Last but not least, for the details and sound sources used for each dreamscapes please feel free to check out their individual pages. 

Dad and his new house

I was there for the second time. My dad was moving into a bigger and nice flat in a Kwai Chung public housing estate. I kept asking why and when he moved in since he was still living in Sham Shui Po when I meet him last week. The new flat was a lot bigger and clean compared to his old flat. My dad's answers were not really making senses and I wondered if memory loss was one of the side effect of popping too many pills with his bowl illness. I was feeling sad seeing him in the flat cuz I thought I made him worry too much about livings and couldn't share any burden of him.

*Referring to my dad's moving new house issue, this piece is mixed with 6 individual sound clips from land properties TVC; with now each cutting into 1800 pieces (0.1sec@). Aim to create a dreamy and unbelievable atmosphere.

http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/manshanho2/Dadandhisnewhouse.mp3

Bro

I had no idea of what was there and all I can remember is my 12-year-old brother's presence. All the details and events were just so blurry.

*Refers to how my brother's interest in Jay Chau's songs, this piece is mixed by Jay's Cai Hong/彩虹 & 不能說的秘密

http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/manshanho2/Bro.wav

Cobee

My high school best friend Cobee used to sit at the back of classroom and I found her absence in the classroom with everybody's there as the old days...I was standing near the teacher desk area and everybody was smiling to me. One of the mates told me that Cobee has caught a serious flu so she couldnt make it to school...I felt like missing her tons.

*Mixed with Cobee's favourite song- 一事無成- 周柏豪+ 鄭融 & our high school song


http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/manshanho2/Cobee.mp3

Mates

I was a third person again and I saw my presence there.

My friend Eunice told me to finish another extra assignment of the Visual Ethnography course and I was like "OMG!"

And I saw one of my middle school mates later...I shouted out her chinese name "Wong XX" while she was with another middle school mate whom I no longer remember her name. I could hardly remember how their faces.

*Sound sources from Mika- Big Girl( You are Beautiful ) due to the fact that personally I don't consdier having extra work and my middle school period beautiful.

http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/manshanho2/Mates.mp3

My friend's ex-boy

I saw my good friend S.Y's ex-boy was holding another girl's hand...I didn't feel too good to see this scene cuz he had such a gentle face expression there which made me sickkkkkk cuz he is such a jackass who has only flirty ideas with ladies in his terrible mind.

*Sound sources from a variety of the band Ketchup's songs and interviews- the band they both used to like when they are in love.

http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/manshanho2/myfriendsexboy.mp3

Mr.S

I witnessed all the happenings as a third person. S was sitting on the school sofa near the entrance. I was brave enough to say "HI" to him and wanting to have out first conversation started but all he replied was a really cold and rude "HI"... I saw myself wearing my favorite A & F brown dress and everything were in B & W except me and Mr. S.

*Sound sources from a few Gatsby TVC since Mr. S was pretending the spokesperson of this brand in a TVC competition.

http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/manshanho2/MrS.wav

My boy and his red X white stripe hat

My boy was wearing a red X white stripe hat which, I have never ever seen before. He refused to take it off even though we were making out on the bed.

*Sound sources from his favourite band Maroon 5 and my favourite song- If I Ain't Got You.

http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/manshanho2/MyboyandhisredXwhitestripehat.mp3