Metal Drawl Powerlines Cicada
Metal Drawl Cicada Powerlines
Powerlines Cicada Metal Drawl
Powerlines Metal Drawl Cicada
Cicada Powerlines Metal Drawl
Cicada Metal Drawl Powerlines
As we explore the topic Institution Building from Season 2 more deeply, we begin to consider the myriad possibilities for how art institutions can exist, operate, and execute projects. In the current landscape, where institutional curation demonstrates notable conceptual rigidity and limitations, our primary focus is to break the impasse by seeking effective, contemporary means and broadening curatorial practices within Asia. Concurrently, the global COVID-19 pandemic has posed various obstacles to fieldwork research, which is traditionally based on physical spaces. In 2021, the Curatorial Practices in Asia (CPA) research platform, through online collaboration, invited Dubai-based artist Xie Lantian* as the project curator and organizer to launch a series of interventions into the museum system. Metal Drawl Powerlines Cicada… is a cross-platform ecosystem encompassing both online and offline spaces, unfolding a series of vocal assemblies that whirl like a tornado.
True to the project’s title, elements set in different forms of combination and sequence that belong to the unique individual memories and life scenes of the participants – such as powerlines, cicadas, and metal drawl – blur the project’s nature and subjectivity. As a result, it is difficult to define the project through exhibitions, research, or artistic creation. Simultaneously, curators will no longer occupy a central position, with all project participants contributing their curatorial practices.
Metal Drawl Powerlines Cicada consists of six ecological components:
Scratch disk, hosted on a home server located in Delhi, India, is the “inspiration repository” for the project. It contains the ideas and materials contributed by all project members and is kept updated as the project progresses. Within Scratch disk, you can find reading materials and creative process records that help you understand the project's background, as well as screenshots from team group chats and even images of the kitten Popeye staying in the museum office. Occasionally, you may encounter server errors, which might be due to sudden power outages in Delhi – as described on the Scratch disk website, “it is unstable, precarious, and always under construction.”
Episodes, primarily released on online streaming platforms, present pieces made by different artists interwoven like subplots in a story, each developing independently yet interconnected. Ingeniously employing diverse viewing and interaction methods of the streaming era, the series breathes new life into the artists’ work while prompting the museum to reflect on and adjust its working method in the internet age.
The protagonist of the eponymous series Metal Drawl Powerlines Cicada is Hemant Sreekumar, a sound artist from Bangalore, India. He specializes in integrating noise into experimental music, crafting auditory environments with parametrically generated sounds. In this series, he simulates a sonic environment intertwined with cicada calls and electrical hums. The series is live-streamed on YouTube and broadcast on Bilibili and WeChat Video, displaying a grayscale filter on the distorted screen and adding a unique reverb effect to the sound as it echoes through the museum conference room before being transmitted to the computer.
To be movementary, a series jointly created by Delhi artist Bhagwati Prasad and Dubai curator Sabih Ahmed, comprises five episodes. In this series, the two collaborators, residing in different regions, appear together on a Zoom meeting. Utilizing the platform’s multi-channel video capabilities, they establish intertextual narratives between text and images. Sabih reads texts in both English and Hindi from the book Trickster City, which features articles related to the urban life in Delhi. At the same time, Bhagwati interprets the texts by capturing objects at home and street scenes through simple camera movements in the first-person perspective. The series is live-streamed on YouTube and Bilibili during evenings in West Asia and East Asia, providing viewers with a glimpse into the leisure life of art professionals.
The series SPLICE is an experimental music album created by Splice, consisting of five tracks. Splice, an artistic and curatorial practice duo formed by Delhi artists Rohini Devasher and Pallavi Paul, recently focused on the dissection and combination of speculative concepts related to ecology. In this series, they employ various sound effects to construct imagined plant structures, such as the growth of apical buds and lateral roots. Elements closely associated with plant ecology, including glass, air, and water, are also portrayed in other tracks.
Episodes will continue to be updated over the next two months. New protagonists and episodes will join the project lineup, including Hong Kong art researcher Huang Yunting and Delhi artist Suvani Suri, among others.
Newsletter, authored by Wing Chan, an independent writer based in Hong Kong and London, is sent to the subscribers of RAM mail list. Concurrently, through the “translation” of the email content, museum curator Xu Tiantian and curatorial assistant Ke Qiwen embark on experimental collaborations with Wing, addressing topics such as “gap of language,” “creating neologisms,” and “cross-language reading barriers.”
Newsletter represents a daring endeavor to penetrate the institution’s core communication channels. As we send content that markedly diverges from current affairs newsletters and official correspondences, we also gain insights into the mechanisms and algorithms behind anti-spam filters on email platforms. Internally, this experience enables the museum team to re-familiarize themselves with the complexities of the digital environment; externally, it unlocks additional possibilities for the art institution's content production and engagement with the public.
Playlist, curated by Hong Kong-based curator Amiya Nagpal, is dedicated to assemble sounds and undergoes constant updates. It can serve as background music, accompaniment, a means to enliven the atmosphere, or maintain alertness. It may even be the perfect choice for those moments of distraction during work hours.
Incidents, convened by Aarushi Surana & Kaushal Sapre, are encounters with the public in unexpected forms and at unanticipated times.
Online Incidents are organized by the Out of Line group, who primarily utilizes text and voice communication on mobile devices as their creative medium. In this project, they have designed text content tailored to local contexts, sending it to visitors who have previously provided their phone numbers to the museum at designated times, like a distinctive, witty, and humorous greeting.
Personas, co-designed with Mo Mo Wu Wen, a design group based in Tokyo and Hangzhou, aim to disaggregate visual identity templatization and invoke a cross-user, cross-platform collective appearance for meeting, reflecting, and envisioning while delving deep into each surprise event, series, subscription email, playlist, and temporary storage. Metal Drawl Powerlines Cicada emphasizes collaborative wisdom; the invitations sent out multiply exponentially, surpassing imagination, yet remaining unified in intention. The mode of operation is flexible and centered on thought. The statement: don’t take action, just let things happen. The statement: create in collaboration. The statement: confidently assert yourself, engage in the battle, and be part of the world together with contemporaries and peers.
金属拖腔电线蝉
金属拖腔蝉电线
电线蝉金属拖腔
电线金属拖腔蝉
蝉电线金属拖腔
蝉金属拖腔电线
随着对第二次CPA主题“打开机构”不断深入地探讨，我们开始思考艺术机构存在、运作以及开展项目的更多可能性。在机构策展具有明显观念固化和局限性的当下，如何打破僵局寻找具有当代意义的有效媒介，拓展在亚洲范围内的策划实践，成为了我们首先考虑的重点。同时，新冠疫情席卷全球也让原本基于物理空间田野调查式的研究遭受了各种阻碍。2021年，亚洲策展实践研究平台通过线上合作的方式，邀请工作生活于迪拜的艺术家谢蓝天*作为项目策划与召集人，展开了一系列对美术馆系统非同寻常地介入，“金属拖腔电线蝉”就如项目陈述文字中描述的那样——这是一个横跨线上线下多平台的生态系统，将展开一系列的发声集会，如龙卷风般呼啸而来。
正如项目的名字一样，电线、蝉、金属拖腔这些属于参与者独特的个体记忆和生活场景，在不同组合顺序中模糊着项目的属性和主体性，难以用展览、研究或是艺术创作来为它下定义。同时，策展人将不再占据中心地位，所有项目的参与者都贡献着各自的策划实践。
“金属拖腔电线蝉”由六个生态板块构成：
暂存盘储存在一个位于印度德里的家用服务器上，作为项目的“灵感库”，承载了所有项目团队成员共同贡献的想法和资料，并且随着项目的进展一直在更新中。在暂存盘里既可以找到帮助你理解项目背景的阅读材料、创作过程记录，也可以发现团队群聊的截屏，甚至是在美术馆办公室暂居的小猫咪“啵啵爱”。偶尔你也会碰到服务器报错，这很可能是因为德里的突发停电——正如在暂存盘首页中描述的那样，“它不稳定、岌岌可危，且总是在建设中”。
剧集以线上视频播放平台为主要阵地，不同艺术家的创作仿佛剧情中的不同支线一般，各自独立发展却又相互穿插牵连。剧集巧妙地使用了流媒体时代多样的观看和互动方式，既为艺术家的创作注入新的生命力，也促使美术馆进行反思和调整在互联网语境下的工作模式。
项目同名剧集《蝉金属拖腔电线》的主人公是来自印度班加罗尔的声音艺术家 Hemant Sreekumar。他擅长将噪声运用于实验音乐的创作中，利用参数生成的声音创建听觉情境。在这个剧集中，他用噪声模拟了一个蝉鸣和电流声交织着的声音环境。剧集在 YouTube 上进行直播，并同时以模拟时代的音画转导方式转播至哔哩哔哩和微信视频号：画面在失真的屏摄中仿佛叠上一道灰白的滤镜，而声音也回旋在美术馆会议室中，待它再传入电脑之后又加上了一道特别的混响效果。
剧集《瞬移》由印度德里艺术家 Bhagwati Prasad 和迪拜策展人 Sabih Ahmed 共同创作完成，共分为五集。在这组剧集中，身居不同地区的两人通过Zoom同屏现身，并利用平台天然的多频影像特性，建立起文本与图像的互文叙事：Sabih 用英语和印地语双语朗读的文本出自文集《捣蛋鬼之城》，书中的文章均与德里都市生活相关；Bhagwati 则以家中物件和街头情境作为拍摄对象，通过第一人称视角的简单镜头运动对文本作出阐释。剧集分别于西亚和东亚的傍晚在 YouTube 和哔哩哔哩上直播，让观众得以一窥艺术从业人员的业余生活。
剧集《阴影生态》是 Splice 创作的实验音乐专辑，共有五首曲目。Splice（意为“粘接”）是由德里艺术家 Rohini Devasher 和 Pallavi Paul 组成的艺术和策展实践组合，近期主要关注与生态相关的思辨概念的切割和组合。她们在这个剧集中用各种声音效果构建想象中的植物结构，比如顶芽与侧根的生长；与植物生态紧密相关的元素也在其他曲目中得以描绘，包括玻璃、空气和水。
剧集仍将在接下来的两个月间持续更新。新的主人公和剧集也将继续加入项目的阵容，包括香港的艺术研究员黄湲婷、德里艺术家 Suvani Suri 等。
订阅邮件的内容由 Wing Chan 撰写，她是一位工作生活于香港和伦敦的独立作家。任何订阅了美术馆邮件的公众都可能会收到一段由 Wing 撰写的文字。同时通过对邮件内容的“翻译”，美术馆策展人徐天天和策展助理柯淇雯也展开了与 Wing 针对“语言的缝隙”、“创造新字”、“跨语言阅读障碍”等话题的实验创作。
订阅邮件是一次侵入机构核心通讯渠道的大胆尝试，而在发送与时事通讯、官方信函等大相径庭的邮件内容时，我们也得以一窥邮件平台背后的反垃圾邮件筛查等机制和算法。对内，这让美术馆团队重新认识了数字化环境背后的复杂性；对外，这也打开了艺术机构的内容生产及与公众接触方式的更多可能性。
播放列表由现工作生活于香港的 Amiya Nagpal 策划。在这个集结声音的平台上，观众们可以点开这个不断更新的列表，将它作为背景音乐、伴奏曲目，用来活跃气氛或是保持清醒，甚至可以作为你上班摸鱼时间的最佳选择。
突发事件由 Aarushi Surana 和 Kaushal Sapre 共同策划，艺术家的创作将以意想不到的形式、在意想不到的时间与观众相遇。
线上的突发事件由 Out of Line 小组策划，他们以移动设备上的文字和语音通信为主要创作媒介。在本项目中他们设计了适合国内语境的文字内容，在特定的时间点发送给了曾经在美术馆留过手机号码的观众们，就像是一条特殊的、诙谐幽默的问候。
虚拟人设由上海外滩美术馆与生活于杭州和东京的默默无闻工作室团队共同设计，旨在消解模版化的视觉形象，召唤一次跨用户、跨平台的集体登场，会见、反思与展望，并深入思考每个突发事件、剧集、订阅邮件、播放列表和暂存盘。“金属拖腔电线蝉”重在集思广益；发出的邀请成倍增长，超乎想象；一致的是意向。运行方式是灵活的。运行方式是思想。声明：不是做事，而是让事情发生。声明：集思造物。声明：在同代人与同行者的陪伴下，自信的提出主张，投入战斗，与世界同在。
