The Tim Hawkinson’s work, especially the light sensitive piano in “Uberorgan” make me remind me childhood’s memory. When I was a little girl, a music box was pretty fantastic to me. It was really curious how the sound come out of that kind of tiny box. Furthermore, what much more fascinated me is the structure of the music box. As I rotate a ratcher lever and let it go, then it start making a ringing sound according to position of a set of pins on the cylinder, striking a steel comb. I assumed that a set of pin is a kind of secret codes and these codes translate to magical sounds. Listening the sounds, I felt that I’m now decoding a secret as a blind who is reading brailles.
Likewise, watching Tim’s “Uberorgan” , I assumed that it is a kind of huge and exaggerated music box. Tim replaces the set of pins with the black color on the huge transparent sheet. As the sheet rotates to the up and down, the gigantic musical instrument produces sounds. The special principle of it is based on light. That is to say, it is responsive to the light. For instance, the black painted part is unable to make a sound since the light cannot penetrate that part. Otherwise a transparence part reacts to the light and produce sounds. This process is very similar with the process of visual perception. Through the light, an eye can visually recognize an object. However, in this work, what is sensitive to the light is not an image but a sound and what is recognizable by light is a sound. The sound is heard by the light. Actually, the sense of hearing is totally not relevant to light. People can hear sound without light. In this point, he emphasizes how the visibility affects to the hearing and eyesight block the sense of hearing. That is to say, what we see is what we hear. I assume that a set of printed image is a kind of secret code and these codes translated to strange sounds. Watching the printed images, I felt that I’m now encoding secret as deaf who is reading images.
1 comment:
I am interested in Yuni’s point of view because I am not that kind of person who enjoy mechanical arts, so I was thinking the sound was very annoying at first. Although I knew that he used light to make sounds, I haven’t noticed about the relationship between light and sound and It could be ironic but amazing.
Uberorgan is the huge structure which makes people feel overwhelmed and some of them might feel they are in the human body or inside of a factory. This organic system uses the whole space even the air with sounds. Therefore, the viewer can feel the atmosphere and participate the work by using their own sense of order. I like the connection between the artist and the viewer.
Materials for his works are quite simple. This is the most impressive thing for me in his arts because he expresses his concept by using those simple mediums like plastic sheets and electronical wares. I think it is very important to use proper materials for creating.
His work reminded Yuni the childhood memory. I assure that this work is also connected with his experience or childhood. I am just surprised that he has reanalyzed and created his own style from the fragmentary memories because artists have to have conversations with the public through their ways of arts.
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