This thesis develops the concept of Sonic Fluidity as a viable practice for exploring malleable perspectives in sound and advocates for a broader, more inclusive approach to contemporary art and sonic practice through the hearing of shared volumes and the sounding out of hidden realms of sonic possibility. Through the sound art works of artists like Christine Sun Kim and Jana Winderen, sonic contexts that engage with different subjectivities and multiple modalities are analysed, to observe how diverse sensory and artistic processes can frame and resonate sonic bodies through the act of listening to and with others. I reflect on what constitutes a sense of fluidity, how embodiment, situatedness and multisensing might inform and augment creative methodology. I examine different theoretical perspectives for transforming sonic perception into a polyphonic experience of diverse resonances, to uncover what it means to set certain resonances into vibration in order to materialise the invisible, the formless and the abstract. The writing addresses the following questions – What is audibility? How do we amplify the unseen, the unheard and the unknown? What can be done to interrogate and queer the limits of sonic modalities to vocalise otherness? How can sonic sensibility be reconfigured to articulate multidimensional spaces and provoke reconciliation with other worlds? In pursuing non-normative multimodal practices, sonic fluidity becomes the feeling of being inside sound, manifestly present in moments of transformation, ready to traverse plural sonic worlds.
Sound Installation
Online
6’50”
Bags of rice, aluminium sheet, 2 large speaker, MaxMSP
Thousands of rice grains gather together in the hopes of figuring out how to respond to agitation caused by sound. Responding to changing frequencies, the rice grains move and dance in and out of diverse formations. The fun for the spectator lies in watching the different ways synchronous movement is expressed.
Vivian Wang worked with Balinese composer Dewa Ketut Alit, artist collective U5, and architects Li Tavor, Alessandro Bosshard, and Matthew van der Ploeg, to explore the homologies of landscape, time, and music. Spearheaded by art historian Adam Jasper at ETH Zürich, a transdisciplinary team from Indonesia, Singapore, and Switzerland collectively investigate the story of the subak – the complex irrigation system of Bali that has, thanks to the close cooperation of farmers and priests, held the island in a balance for a thousand years. The project recounts how the hydraulic and cultural landscape of the subak became one of the first sites of resistance to the so-called Green Revolution.
The final exhibition comprised of several key components, one of which is a film/fiction documentary called Double Bind.
Double Bind Film, 2019
25’, HD
Directed and produced by U5
Music, sound design and narration by Vivian Wang
A journey is a confrontation of expectation with reality. How will the places we visit compare to the images we have formed in our head? Few islands are as evocative as Bali, the famous island in the Indonesian archipelago that was often described as the last paradise. Double Bind documents a trip to Bali as well as the possibility and impossibility of finding an approach to the complex reality of a place. The film was inspired by the research of the American anthropologist Stephen Lansing, whose work was crucial for a reevaluation - and survival - of the century-old tradition of rice growing on Bali in face of attempts to implement the international Green Revolution on the island in the 1980s. But Double Bind is not only a study of agriculture, religion, and water. Bali has fascinated artists and anthropologists since the early of the 20th century. Later, surprising connections between the Indonesian island and California on the other side of the globe and the development cybernetics have developed, connections that already began in the 1930s when the anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson studied the structure of Balinese society.
Double Bind tells the story of encounters - and missed encounters - of anthropology and art, of Bali and California, a tale of projections and connections.
Throughout 2020, I observed that the way I listen had changed. My social and physical interactions had shrunk but conversely, my gaze into the outside world became larger, roomier. This is curious, not least because of an ever expanding imagination, but something about time started to feel different. I had become more aware of what I hear, even small or barely perceptible sounds. For months, I lived a mundane existence, taking a cold swim midday, everyday in the Limmat. I frequently walked across the Viaduct in Zürich, not far from where I live, from one end to the other, often late at night. Sounds criss-crossed like lines of energy, of people zigzagging across the park below and the frequent passing of trains just above. Occasional piercing shards of trams arriving and leaving, blending with industry, traffic, trees and animals, all filtered through the centuries’ old stone arches. My flat is on the 6th floor with a window facing a strange triangular plot of three buildings framing a distant and often mist-laden Uetliberg (mountain). Straddling two dead end streets, these buildings bustle with life behind glass windows into which I spend hours looking and contemplating. For this film, I wanted to share sonic explorations on three different planes that directly mirror the environments I moved through daily. These planes differ in height, but also present very different sonic experiences. Detail, imperceptibility, love, fascination, sensation, pleasure, energies both human and animal, proliferate and amplify a world that reveals more with closer attention. The images are taken with a smart phone and set to a soundtrack composed entirely from field recordings of these three planes over a period of 4 weeks.
Not Today is a story about two lost souls, Jerome and Britt, who arrange to meet under an old tree. It’s Christmas Eve and they are deep in the woods. They begin a solemn ritual. Feeling timid, Jerome soon has doubts about the promise they made to each other.
Starring: Oliver Jordan Tewelde & Louise Debatin
Written & directed by: Lara Jacobs
Production manager: Zoé Kugler
Assistant director: Valerio Alexander Johler
Director of Photography: Tobias Wanner
Editor: Gina Calamassi
Sound design: Oscar van Hoogevest
Music: Vivian Wang
Production Design: Eulalie Déguénon & India Demirci
Additional graphic design: Anja Irniger
Gaffer: Pascal Kohler
Lighting technicians: Niculin Felix & Carla Maiolino
1st assistant camera: Nevin George
2nd assistant camera & DIT: Daniel Loepfe
Sound recordist: Oscar van Hoogevest
Additional boom operator: Seraina Scherini
Additional make-up: Larissa Thaler
Additional lighting: Aiyana De Vree
Unit manager: Balazs Gyenes
Catering: Shaleen Singh
Runners: Till Gerber & Gabriel Grosclaude
Driver: Stephan Eigenmann
Covid-19 compliance supervisor: Jan-David Bolt
Color grading: Lukas Gut
Visual effects: Daniel Loepfe
Graphic & title designer: Zoé Kugler
Sound mix: Gregg Skerman & Patrycja Pakiela
Opening track: Oliver Jordan Tewelde
Extras: Roy Edwards, Larissa Kiers, Sandro Graf
Special thanks to:
Haferholzkorporation Dielsdorf, Stephan Huber
Gemeinde Dielsdorf, Leonardo Bernaschina
Fischer’s Bio Gemüse
Steiner Flughafenbeck
Kompotoi
Karin & Roman Gähler
Stefan Peterhans
Olesia Litich
Gian Courtin
Marco Quandt
Ralph Wetli
Juliette Szott
Fabienne Koch
Jann Preuss & Micha Lewinsky
Linda Gunst & Fabian Guggisberg
Helene Eigenmann
Lia Dellers & Ambra Peyer
Study project
«Figur & Konflikt»
Spring semester 2021
Project mentoring: Thomas Gerber & Peter Luisi
Mentor editing: Michael Schaerer & Bernadette Kolonko
Line producer: Filippo Bonacci
Bachelor of arts in film
Programme director: Sabine Boss
8 channel composition commissioned by Ekko Festival Bergen 2021. Also featured at Sibelius Academy Finland and finally presented at ZHdK in 8.4 multichannel format at the Kammermusiksaal 2.
Ekko Festival Bergen, Norway
October 2021
Curator: Lasse Marhaug
Sibelius Academy, Helsinki (as part of Spatial Audio Week 2021)
December 2021
Curator: Jan Schacher
ZHdK, Kammermusiksaal 2
January 2022
Master Project
31"
Synopsis:
An octophonic work exploring breath and the human voice, deconstructed and organised in multimodes, seeking out unventured terroir and sans language, to sound out the unheard, the suppressed, the invisible, the undeveloped, the inner and the other. Eight speakers become embodiments of the alt human. In the deep murky recesses of my clumsy subconscious sprung forth this idea of a better, more improved model human. In this last year, having spent so much time physically alone, and encountering human interaction through zoom or phone conversation only, I came to rely a lot on the voices of people as a gauge for intimacy, or humanity, if you will, a way to measure or tell from hearing vocal articulation, how well I was actually connecting. I started to observe more closely the infinite minute details of voices, and this led to the possibility of redesigning a new sonic experience of human "anima", our vital force. Alchemy dabbling. The human voice can be strong but also vulnerable, incredibly multi-faceted, and a carrier of so much nuance. Another reason why I am curious about this notion of intimacy, is if by working with these voices, there'd still be a way to feel and respond instinctively to the outcome. I also wanted to step back from being a composer, so in using Max to engineer a garden of vocal “happenings”, I relinquish some artistic control and what is heard is a result of autonomous and accidental unfolding events.
Synopsis:
A little girl with four arms. An immortal jellyfish. The mourning of the future we had imagined. An essay on what remains when a dream dies.
Director: Morgane Frund
Screenplay: Morgane Frund
Production: Modular work 2nd BA 2021, major in Video
University of Lucerne - Design & Art / Morgane Frund
Camera: Anaïs Bourgogne
Assistant Camera / Location Sound: Léon Hüsler
Editing: Morgane Frund
Music: Vivian Wang
Sound Mix: Vivian Wang