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Fidgety (In Between Up & Down)


Credit: GayBird

GayBird (HK)

The adjective “fidgety” describes a nervous and jumpy feeling. Normally people see this as a bad feeling. However, the artist treats it as a musical idea.

For this work the Chinese character 「忐忑」(Figure1) was designed as a pictograph using the words 「上」 (Figure2) for “up” and 「下」(Figure3) for “down” over the word 「心」(Figure4) for “heart” to describe this feeling.

With a 40-channel speaker system, the setting of the speakers looks like a path resembling veins. All 40 speakers play the sound of the artist’s heartbeat. When the speakers start to play one after another they produce a range of various rhythmic and musical compositions. The heartbeat is the most important element in this work; however, it is not easy for the audience to hear, since it was designed as a triggering force rather than an audible element. The low frequency of the heartbeat causes the speakers to vibrate, which then triggers the kinetic installation to produce sounds.