ARTISTS TALKING

# 56 [8 October 2007]

20th Anniversary of the Beijing Cricket Tournament, Bao Guo Si Temple continued

The back room is where the assessment for fighting fitness takes place.
There was a lot of photographing and videoing taking place by everyone, locals and foreigners alike. We were the only group of foreigners attending, and I noticed our presence was documented almost as much as the fights themselves.

# 55 [4 October 2007]

Velocity UK

One of the recordings has been selected for inclusion in Velocity – Festival of Digital Culture in Lancashire, UK. The work will be available as a podcast within a group of selected sound works designed to be heard during a train journey around the Morecambe Bay area. The selection will be available from 25th October at http://www.folly.co.uk/

The work is entitled Jing Shan Park 01 [detail].

- A group of women gather under the trees of Jing Shan Park, central Beijing, to sing together in the afternoon heat. Using pre-recorded instrumentation from traditional songs and microphones to amplify their voices, the women attract an appreciative audience. High above in the trees and competing for sonic attention are two groups of cicadas. These cicadas are common in Beijing and are known locally as hei za chan [roughly, black noisy cicada] and hui gu [roughly, dedicated group of insects] -

I was particularly interested in including work from Beijing in this exhibition as a small form of acknowledgement of the tragedy that struck there in 2004, where 23 Chinese cockle pickers were killed in the fast morning tide and quicksands. See the Guardian link at http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2106950,00.html

# 54 [4 October 2007]

National Day fervour

# 53 [1 October 2007]

Continuing thoughts

So, the research now has a number of strands. The audio recordings are my direct, empirical experience ‘in the field’ [or rather in the parks of Beijing…] where the crickets and cicadas are singing in public spaces. These recordings frequently contain music and singing by locals as well. I wonder how influential the sound of the insects is on the music played. Professor Ai-Ping Liang and Dr Chun-Xiang Liu provide identification and scientific expertise, but are not particularly acquainted in the cultural context of these species. Looking at the insect markets illustrates the activities of those who are heavily involved in cricket culture, or who would like to be. They confirm a continued existence of this historical/traditional human-insect relationship. The interviews will provide a response from the general population. It will be interesting to see how much people know, or want to know, about singing insects and how far an interest in these creatures penetrates the broader population.

# 52 [29 September 2007]

798 Dashanzi

In an hour or so we are off to 798 Dashanzi to check out the Dashanzi International Art Festival. We will catch up with Cathy [Busby] and Garry [Kennedy] there, who are both finalising their publications with Ren Yanyan at Two Lines Gallery. They are participating in Li Gang’s next group show at the Pickled Art Factory, which opens on 10th October. It sounds like the process is going well, which is not surprising to me. Ren Yanyan helped produce the postcards for me last month and they are top quality. I have just heard from Laurens and he is going to link up with us all later as well.

# 51 [26 September 2007]

Mr Xia Tong

Tomorrow Cam returns to Melbourne. Mr Shen will drive us all to the airport to say farewell. Cam has had a great experience in Tuanjiehu Park just as I have. He linked up with Mr. Xia Tong, a saxophone player. Cam is a musician [as well as an artist] and plays both saxophone and clarinet, and brought his clarinet to Beijing. They have not had much language in common other than music. Cam has learnt a traditional Chinese song from Mr Xia called ‘Jasmine’, while he taught Mr Xia “Kookaburra sits in the old Gum Tree’. Jake and I met Mr Xia last night and we listened to the two songs. Mr Xia visits the park every weekday between 3pm and 6pm to practice.

# 50 [27 September 2007]

Yannick Dauby in Taiwan

I have been in touch with Yannick Dauby again, a French sound artist who I met through the phonography.org elist. He is giving a sound talk at the Taipei Artists Village any day now. He also has a great interest in singing insects. He gave me a link to a cricket concert that occurred in Shanghai on the Full Moon Festival. I don’t think there has been an equivalent here in Beijing. I have, however, found out about a cricket culture talk that is taking place at the Chinese Culture Club next Sunday.

# 49 [29 September 2007]

Tuanjiehu Park Cricket Interviews Day 2

This morning I conducted some more interviews. Again, pretty successful, but I miss out on a lot of chat and discussion. Rather than asking Kelly to translate during the interviews, I have decided that next Saturday I will bring the minidisk and microphone and record the discussions for later translation. I like the idea of capturing these discussions occurring in the context of all the activities in the park and without much input from me. Having the conversations translated at the time would probably halt the flow of exchange.

The park is still the focus of much activity, but not to the same extent as in the heat of summer. Evenings are much quieter now, as the cool sets in. Days are still warm with alternate sun/cloud.

# 48 [29 September 2007]

Golden Week – Full Moon Festival and National Day

Here are images of the unidentified cicada found near Vault 1 of the Terracotta Army in Xi’an. I have managed to photograph and scan this cicada [thanks to Brian and Hong Mei at Red Gate]. Scans are more interesting photographic images, I find, because of their limited depth of field and the effects this limitation has on the image. This is the advantage of finding dead insects over using insects from scientific/museum collections. The difficulty is that it is hard to find dead insects in good nick. A local artist, Huang Xu, has used the scanner to great effect in his ‘Plastic Bag’ series, which was shown at Li Gang’s Pickled Art Factory this month.

I contacted Ai-Ping by email and will wait for his identification expertise. He is very busy at the moment, particularly because of Golden Week, which starts on Monday 1st October – National Day. This week – Golden Week - is a holiday for all. Last week also had the Full Moon Festival on 25th September, which is the traditional mid-Autumn festival. This festival falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, and is around the time of the autumn equinox. This celebration can be traced as far back as to the ancient Xia and Shang Dynasties [2000 BC – 1066 BC]. National Day is a far more recent celebration, and every 19 years it falls on the same day as Full Moon Festival. National Day celebrates the founding of the People’s Republic of China as announced by Mao Zedong on 1st October 1949 on the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tian’anmen Square.

# 47 [26 September 2007]

Xi’an City Wall

The city wall of Xi’an is fully restored and it is possible to cycle the 12km around the city on this wall, which we did on our last afternoon here.

Found some crickets singing outside shops in Xi’an, the traditional way of enticing people in to come and buy. Also, outside vault number 1 of the terracotta army Cam came across a dead cicada on the ground. It looks like a cryptotympana atrata, one of the big ones, but I can’t be sure yet. Hoping to make a high res scan of it as I doubt I will be able to take it into Australia.