Cold Dream  ✣  Menghan Wang

Silver Ripples is the final output of a practice based project Sounding Presentness: Resonating The Otherworld--a series of practices including psychogeographical wandering, instrument design and building, field recording, videography, and multi-channel spatial sound composition.

In this project, Menghan Wang constructed 7 hand-made windchimes, and used them to create an installation(s) across multiple places, including 6 permanent installation(s) at 6 secluded public places in Berlin city, left without any additional information, and 1 temporary installation at the Sound Studies and Sonic Art Master Exhibition 2022 during May 26-29 in a walk-in fridge inside the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, the latter was the only one named as an art installation, a 6-channel composition sythesizes those remote places altogether. The project aims to create an open dialogue through sound between inside and outside places, contexts, and concepts, encouraging the audience to initiate their own listening journeys while resonating with an “otherworld” in progress.

“Silver Ripples is an installation consisting of a 6-channel sound composition of field recordings and a hand-made wind chime made of recycled and recyclable construction metals. With the lowest pitch at A4 (440Hz), the 6 tubes of the wind chime were tuned in A and E across adjacent octaves in order to create harmonious sounding and to induce resonances as much as possible between each chime. The installation hints at 6 secluded places in Berlin, where other 6 hand-made wind chimes were hung, left without any additional information, and continuously sound as parts of those environments throughout and after the exhibition period, "echoing" to each other without sounding at one place. The wind chimes can be discovered whether expectedly or unexpectedly and given meanings by potential audiences as parts of their own journeys, or as sounding objects accompanying contemplations or meditations at those places. The coordinates of the locations will be shared as part of the installation only, and will no longer be promoted afterwards.”

Hand-made wind chimes made of recycled aluminium tubes, construction metals, and fishing wires. Photo by Menghan Wang, Berlin, 2022

The project initially was inspired by my personal experiences that happened during pandemic. While social interactions were largely prohibited, being alone became the new normality, social activities were experienced in a much more private, sensible and unusual way. It became evident that after a long time of solitude and mindful interactions within small social groups, slow but positive changes were happening from the inside out, while the world is still going through diseases, crises, and wars. During this time, I often reflect on the role of art in society, regarding what way it resonates and reflects the current world that is going through such significant transformation, and how it can contribute to the process of forming a fair and sustainable communal environment, where the positive changes on a personal level could contribute to the changing world.

Sounding Presentness: Resonating The Otherworld is an experimental project in which I put such reflection into my artistic practice, inspired by the state of listening and sonic resonance, it is an attempt to illuminate the importance of ambiguity in the process of transformation, the in-between spaces, or the formless worlds, where the seemingly insignificant personal experiences take place and contribute to the shared and changing world. By presenting the work as an art installation(s), the project aims to provide an entry into an ambiguous sensory world for experimentations and reflections with and beyond conventions.

(For more info please visit Sounding Presentness: Resonating The Otherworld)

Sounding Presentness: Resonating The Otherworld is
Menghan Wang’s graduation project at
Sound Studies and Sonic Arts (Master of Arts),
Universität der Künste Berlin.

The project is supervised by
Prof. Dr. Sabine Sanio and Prof. Daisuke Ishida.

Special thanks to the support from
Vilte Gustyte, Hou Lam Wu, Norman Wolf,
Metal Mum, Kunst Stoffe Berlin.