Aural pleasure needs to be taken seriously

Sorting out noise and art. PHOTO COURTESY OF ETAT LAB

Sound art is in an ambiguous indefinable category of its own: not quite noise and not quite music, as it creates an image of sound operating between the natural sounds found in the environment and the sounds made by the experimentation and manipulation of electronic equipment.

ETAT Lab has just put out a set of experimental sound art featuring Taiwanese sound artists that includes a booklet, three CDs and one DVD, and is the result of an exhibition held last year titled bias: 2003 Sound Art Collective of Taiwan. Many of the included artists are inspired by avant-garde artists of the 20th century such as John Cage and Pierre Boulez.

The DVD begins with Alf Chang's Bit Waves. The riveting video shows driving through an eerily-lit empty tunnel. The sound, made by cutting and pasting a computer's sine wave in an ultra-high or low frequency, creates a distortion that often sounds like the ominous rumblings of tom-tom drums.

One of the best works, that gives equal weight to both sound and imagery, is Wang Fu-jui's (王福瑞) hypnotic Waterdrome. The filtered sun on water almost resembles computer blips, creating a haunting space between nature and technology and allows a platform for dreaming. (One of his sound and image pieces can be currently seen at MOCA's Digital Sublime.

On CD 1, Lin-Lin's (林其蔚) composition is multi-layered, like one of Kurt Schwitter's audio collages. Over the din of people's voices, one hears the sound of chirping birds, quacking ducks and horses' hooves. Wei Che-chun's (擳黎蝢) pounding piano keys gives this composition an unearthly air. This CD also includes the work of Mombaza (撘菔), Punkcan (璆) and Jupiter Xu (閮梢蝑). CDs 2 and 3 feature artists outside of Taiwan such as Scott Arford, Atau Tanaka and Francisco Lopez. Call (02) 2778 9268 for more information.