HONG-KAI WANG
 
PROJECTS
A Coney Island of the Ear
Setting Up the Banquet
Pleasure Garden
The Broken Orchestra
Qi Min Organic Restaurant
Duet in the Courtyard
Symphony
Elevator Music
Feedback
Water Meditation
Listening with Dumplings
COLLABORATIONS
 
(Excerpt)
Duet in the Courtyard
2006
Sound installation
Taipei Biennial, Taipei, Taiwan
 
'Duet in the Courtyard' is a multi-channel sound installation staged at the Sculpture Courtyard of Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Percussive sounds of footsteps, pre-recorded at the Sculpture Courtyard, create a soundscape. Shoe-types are varied to alternate pitch/timbre and footstep pace is varied to create a variety of tempo. Sometimes the footsteps are sparse and harmonious, sometimes not. Footsteps symbolize the transience of visitors' coming and going, which resonate to the arriving and departing of the on-site overhead airplanes.

The juxtaposing sounds of pre-recorded footsteps and the real-time airplanes form a duet constantly dialoguing at times in harmony and at times in dissonance at the Sculpture Courtyard in the midst of the existing ambience. The listening environment at the Sculpture Courtyard is therefore altered to a mutating orchestration for the everyday transient visitors.