2CD – Post Concrete

Revolutions Per Minute is a double CD published under the label Concrete Post. It is a near exhaustive survey on Chinese Sound Art drawn from the exhibition at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. This exhibition was the first major retrospective of Chinese sonic art. Revolutions Per Minute is curated by Dajuin Yao, a sound-artist, DJ and professor of new media at the Chinese Academy of Art (CAA). The twenty-six compositions are carefully selected and the variety of the contributions is significant, moving from “traditionalist gabba” by Lin Zhiying; to transducers attached to an iPhone body by artist Wei Wei; passing through field recordings that are actually virtual soundscapes of Second Life (Zhang Anding); to furtively captured conversations by prostitutes (Zhong Minjie); to algorithmic reconstructions of piano improvisation. The catalogue also features Internet Phonographies by Xu Cheng; acousmatic experiments by Edwin Lo; software and hardware improvisations by Zhou Risheng; and diachronic schizophonies by the curator Dajuin Yao. Jumping between the two sections of the collection are works with a textual focus, one closer to sound poetry, such as ‘Zero Poem’ by Zhang Liming or ‘The Wah’ by Yan Jun; and even a tribute to John Cage, whose mesostic (poems composed in such a way that a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text) are read in Chinese (‘Composition in Retrospect’ by Xie Zhongqi).

 

Revolutions Per Minute Sound Art Exhibition At Colgate