This playlist features excerpts from field recordings made at the Wetland and Eastern Sarus Crane Learning Center (Buri Ram, Thailand) by Mr Nattawat Paewkratoke, Assistant Researcher at the Conservation and Research The Zoological Park Organization of Thailand.

I am currently developed a sound composition and installation titled REDDER, based on these recordings of these birds. This work is commissioned by and will be presented at the Thailand Biennale, Korat in December 2021.

Eastern Sarus Crane Soundscape (excerpt D)

Eastern Sarus Crane Soundscape (excerpt C)

Eastern Sarus Crane Soundscape (excerpt B)

This playlist features excerpts from field recordings made at the Wetland and Eastern Sarus Crane Learning Center (Buri Ram, Thailand) by Mr Nattawat Paewkratoke, Assistant Researcher at the Conservation and Research The Zoological Park Organization of Thailand.

These recordings feature in my sound installation Redder, a new work commissioned and presented at the Thailand Biennale, Korat, 2021.

Eastern Sarus Crane Soundscape (excerpt A)

I participated in Animistic Apparatus in April 2019, a three-day film lab initiated by May Adadol Ingawanij, that took place Udon Thani, Thailand. We worked with a local itinerant projection troupe who set up screens, projectors and sound systems from bygone eras as a canvas to explore cross-disciplinary and collaborative modes of re-imagining cinematic practise through a animistic lens: What is cinema, if the screen becomes a gateway to immaterial worlds; a means of dissolving the membrane between the material body and spirit, the living and dead, the human and nonhuman?

This short audio piece features an excerpt from an interview with Jum, caretaker of Jao Phu Nong Jok, an animist shrine we visited during the lab. He tells a story about someone who made an offerings to the site in the form of a film screening. This particular film was a fiction which didn’t bode well with the shrine spirit who resided there, taking it to be the performance of a lie. Halfway through the film the screen caught fire.

I responded to this story by re-working recordings of live improv sessions I did using my field recordings and instruments created by the artist & musician Tarek Atoui. This is my initial effort in feeling my way through the space that Jum's stories opened up for me, via sound.

If we can think of the cinema screen as a door between human and nonhuman worlds, what role might sound play in mediating its opening?

Sound shapes the perceptual and affectual realities we experience, and in relation to the cinematic image it can transform its sensuous horizon in many potential directions. If we see the dance between sound and image as an act of revealing a certain phenomenological fluidity in our experiential reality, then we might consider listening as a means of attuning to these possible worlds that we can inhabit. This audio-visual choreography and process of attunement becomes a gesture of holding open space for alternative modes of perception and affect, and thus contains a potentiality to the bridge the gap between beings and between worlds.

Jao Phu Nong Jok Shrine (Part 2, excerpt)

Potong Pasir, Singapore - School

Potong Pasir, Singapore - Karung Guni

Jurong, Singapore - Fish Market (early morning)

GAC, Singapore - 1st May Bells

This recording, along with others that share the same image, were captured during my Sacred Soundscapes project (2010).

If you're interested to find out more about it, please visit:

http://sacredsoundscapes.wordpress.com/

Ang Mo Kio, Singapore - Lion Dance excerpt (CNY 2010)

This recording, along with others that share the same image, were captured during my Sacred Soundscapes project (2010).

If you're interested to find out more about it, please visit:

sacredsoundscapes.wordpress.com/


Potong Pasir MRT bus stop, Singapore - Myna Birds excerpt (Mar 2010)

Mount Vernon Cemetery, Singapore - Birds excerpt (Mar 2010)

This is a montage of sound & music material created for Brodal Serei, a contemporary dance work about Khmer boxing by Emmanuèle Phuon and Amrita Performing Arts.

The work showed at Esplanade's da:ns festival, Singapore, on 22nd and 23rd October 2016.

Brodal Serei(Freestyle Boxing) - Sound Design & Composition Montage

I am working on a composition which explores the mentality behind British imperialism, through the use of songs and architecture created during the colonial period.

I have used a public domain recording from 1930 of Land of Hope and Glory (originally created in 1902), composed by Edward Elgar with lyrics by A.C Benson and sung by Clara Butt.

In the excerpt you hear each line of the chorus played back in isolation within the tympanum of the former Supreme Court, Singapore. Due to the voluminous interior structure, each interval provides a chance to hear the acoustic character of the dome, as articulated through the reverb tails of the song.

The lyrics, now transformed by the monumental acoustics of the space, begin to speak to me about the grandiosity of the imperial psyche. In turn, the lingering reflections hint towards the lasting effects of colonialism, echoing the notion that the British Empire cast a long shadow. 

As I work on this piece further I will experiment with ways of bringing out these themes through the material re-recorded in the tympanum.

~

Here are the full lyrics to Land of Hope and Glory:

Dear Land of Hope, thy hope is crowned,
God make thee mightier yet!	
On Sov'ran brows, beloved, renowned,
Once more thy crown is set.
Thine equal laws, by Freedom gained,
Have ruled thee well and long;
By Freedom gained, by Truth maintained,
Thine Empire shall be strong.
 
Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.  

Thy fame is ancient as the days,
As Ocean large and wide:
A pride that dares, and heeds not praise,
A stern and silent pride;
Not that false joy that dreams content
With what our sires have won;
The blood a hero sire hath spent
Still nerves a hero son.

Land of Hope and Glory (excerpt) @ The Former Supreme Court Tympanum, Singapore

This excerpt is a recent recording of the dubplate record containing my composition of field recordings from Bukit Brown Cemetery, made in 2013. After 6 years and an estimated 1000+ plays, the soundscape pressed upon its surface has increasingly been inhabited by the crackle, clicks and turbulent textures of the medium. I wonder how it will sound after another 6 years has passed?

Respect IV (Bukit Brown Cemetery I), Dubplate excerpt (mono)

I participated in Animistic Apparatus in April 2019, a three-day film lab initiated by May Adadol Ingawanij, that took place Udon Thani, Thailand. We worked with a local itinerant projection troupe who set up screens, projectors and sound systems from bygone eras as a canvas to explore cross-disciplinary and collaborative modes of re-imagining cinematic practise through a animistic lens: What is cinema, if the screen becomes a gateway to immaterial worlds; a means of dissolving the membrane between the material body and spirit, the living and dead, the human and nonhuman?

This short audio piece features excerpts from an interview with Jum, caretaker of Jao Phu Nong Jok, an animist shrine we visited during the lab. He tells stories relating to the history of the site, specifically about the fate that befell people who 'owned' the land, but ignored the will of the spirit who resides there.

I responded to these stories by re-working a recording of a live improv session I did using my turntable, 'prepared' vinyls and field recording dubplates, contact mics and rubberbands (as well as various other tools). This is my initial effort in feeling my way through the space that Jum's stories opened up for me, via sound. 

If we can think of the cinema screen as a door between human and nonhuman worlds, what role might sound play in mediating its opening? 

Sound shapes the perceptual and affectual realities we experience, and in relation to the cinematic image it can transform its sensuous horizon in many potential directions. If we see the dance between sound and image as an act of revealing a certain phenomenological fluidity in our experiential reality, then we might consider listening as a means of attuning to these possible worlds that we can inhabit. This audio-visual choreography and process of attunement becomes a gesture of holding open space for alternative modes of perception and affect, and thus contains a potentiality to the bridge the gap between beings and between worlds.

Jao Phu Nong Jok Shrine (Part 1, excerpt)

Zai Tang is a multidisciplinary artist based in Singapore. Drawing influence from acoustic ecology, phenomenology and electronic & experimental music, his practise is built upon a belief that listening is an invaluable means of attuning to and forming deeper relationships with the worlds we inhabit.

As a collaborator Zai plays the role of composer, sound designer and musician across different context, having worked with visual artists, filmmakers, choreographers, theatre practitioners, and other musicians.

Recent presentations include the No.60 at Hong Kong Arts Festival (2024) with Pichet Klunchun Dance Company; Sonic Medi(t)ations at National Gallery Singapore (2023); Escape Velocity V (Solo Version) at Seoul Museum of Art (2022); Redder at Thailand Biennale, Korat (2021); Dormant Soil / Concrete Reflections at Busan Biennale, South Korea (2020) with Rei Hayama. Zai has been part of The Migrant Ecologies Project since 2015. Their film {if your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves won the FIPRESCI Award at ISFF Oberhausen (2021) and Best Singapore Short Film at SGIFF (2021).

ZaiTang

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