Water Moves with Sound

Piece Description:

Text: Dai Guangyu

Water droplets flow down from the top of the exhibition hall and strike the gongs on the floor, creating a crashing sound that is transmitted and amplified by microphones and reverberates through the hall.

In addition, a group of recently painted abstract color ink-wash paintings of Jiuzhaigou water scenes are placed nearby.

Text: Zhong Ting

By amplifying the sound of water flow, the artist helps people observe subtle things that are hard to detect in daily life. Music has a close relationship with human emotions and the human body. Different frequencies of sound vibration can cause vibration in various parts of the body, thus affecting human health and emotion. Classical Chinese musical aesthetics come mainly from Confucianism and Taoism. The former focuses on the social function of music, emphasizing the “harmony” of human-social relations, while the latter focuses on the laws of the entire universe, emphasizing the “harmony” of human and nature.

The artist seeks a balance between the two. The work extracts the “sounds of nature” mentioned by Zhuangzi in the form of artistic creation, seeking the liberation of spiritual freedom in the era of “people being burdened by possessions.” The process of water dripping reveals its own flexibility and invisibility, symbolizing the essence of time, as well as the existence and change of things.