返回

Back in Wuhan Artist Villiage

I am back in Wuhan, for the rest of my K11 FUSE SIES2016 residency, after a short trip home. I had to go back in the middle of my time in Wuhan to finish my semester of teaching at the Faculty of Media, Art and Performance, University of Regina, and bring to life our annual iPad Orchestra concert. This year my class, with co-instructors Helen Pridmore and David Gerhard, took over a whole University building with experimental sound and new media. Luckily, alongside K11 FUSE and ISEA2016, the Canada Council for the Arts Inter-Arts office, and the awesome URInternational office at my University also both helped to support my residency travel, so thanks everyone! It is Spring in Wuhan, so the weather is moody, but warmer than Canada where snow is still making an appearance. It was hard to be away from my lovely Wuhan studio where John Campbell and I are building work and planning towards our three big events, two performances in Wuhan and the installation in Hong Kong. John has been working hard since I have been away, coding, buying Raspberry Pis, and setting up our test screens. We have been meeting on WeChat and Skype with curators, and with each other, but it is not the same as being here, smelling the smells, eating the food and watching the studio activities in the art village buzz. I am really looking forward to an incredible exhibit of LED sculpture, sensors and computer fan animation opening downstairs in the Art Village on Saturday, the artists Xheng Da and Lin Xin,and a team of interns have been preparing here and I have been watching it develop. I have been recording soundscapes around Wuhan this morning, the birds are gorgeous and where we are is near water and families in the park. We will be using the soundscapes as part of one of our performances, so we need a range of places, I will take the recorder out again this evening. In two weeks we will hold our first performance/workshop at the Art Village, we are inviting people we have met to join us, and for 90 minutes we will all record memories of this city together in text, image, audio, photo. Super happy that we have an incredible expert on history of this area who has agreed to join us: Professor Francesco Maglioccola, Foreign Expert, Huaxhong University of Science and Technology, School of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is a very respected expert in preservation of architecture, and holding on to older memories as this city develops so quickly. He will share his experiences and wisdom with all of us as we perform the improvisatory, fragile state of remembering. Our memory box template is getting more refined every day, so we will have somewhere to display all the memories we find/improvise. A week after that John and I will be hosting a new performance here, using some of our gathered memories, and utilizing John’s new software for image dispersal The Visual Improviser. And then very quickly, we will be in Hong Kong, installing our exhibit at K11 Gallery for ISEA 2016! I know this time will go so fast, better get back to planning, interacting, recording, and building. So grateful for this incredible opportunity #k11 #videotage #isea2016

logo