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Mass Transit Railway: Sing Jantzen Tse Solo Exhibition

Sing Jantzen Tse

27/7/24

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28/9/24

A deconstructed metro car structure, a composition of video screens, blinking handles, and metal benches, is set amidst an ambient soundscape of a train in motion. ‘Mass Transit Railway’ is a new installation by Sing Jantzen Tse that transforms mundane objects related to transportation, public streets, and recreational parks, employing a multi-screen and sound playback composite construction to evoke a feeling of sensory overload.

In a series of small screens overhead, Lana Tong: A Tailormade Tour (2024) shows a tourist guide who travels with us through the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, from a public estate to a hectic shopping district. Her commentary is conveyed via deliberately low-fidelity speakers to emulate the sound quality of weathered public broadcast speakers. Passengers Back and Forth (2024) is displayed over six vertical screens, which feature passengers on a subway minding their own business. Seemingly banal, it represents a microcosm of everyday Hong Kong life, reenacted with detailed choreography by the artist who enlisted actors. Overhead, four small screens loop videos that parody advertisements of luxury apartments and dance tutorials inspired by square dancing trends, a blend of humour and self-deprecation. Juxtaposing public and personal space; interior and exterior, the video installation explores the social aspects of image production and consumption in our daily lives.

Tse is more interested in presenting a psychogeography of the city, combining footage that he had been shooting since the pandemic, and snippets of childhood memories preserved on VHS. Tse’s blend of nostalgia along with the reframing of the banal cityscape through the lens of a tourist guide is inspired by the aesthetic language used in 90s TV advertisements promoting Hong Kong as the perfect ‘East meets West’ travel hotspot, and also the surge of tourists from the mainland after the SARS outbreak, a result of the Global Tourism Revival programme rolled out by the Hong Kong Tourism Board in 2003, which promoted more fluid travel between the borders. The influx of tourism brought in heightened clashes of culture, and contrasting attitudes towards what consisted of appropriate etiquettes and behaviour which were often scrutinised and exacerbated in public transportation. Just as the MTR often became the site of happenings, this exhibition proposes to do the same - the installation will become a container and enabler of activations by other artists and performers throughout the two months.

Ultimately, the metro train traverses through space and time - between geographical borders, through memories, nostalgia and the collective anxieties about a foggy future. Mass Transit Railway evades didactic commentary on the changing cityscape of the artist’s hometown, but questions the symbolic role of the tourist guide as a mediator and narrator - what does it mean for one’s hometown to be explained through the words of ‘the other’? How can a city be ‘owned’ by those who describe it?


Sing Jantzen Tse’s (b.1987) creates audio-visual works that consider the relations of people, language and city landscapes.In his videos, which are often presented together in his installations, he attempts to express the inseparable and entangled relationships between people and cities, the soul and time. Interested in multimedia practices, he works with mixed media with a focus on audio-visual moving images. In 2012, his experimental sound work Language toured various theatrical performance programmes in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei. Between 2011 to 2015, he was invited as a resident artist touring Africa, India, and the United Kingdom. In 2017, he co-founded the art group “Dabinlo Lab”, which focuses on video projects, sound and music performance, and multimedia art production focusing on Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). As a musician he is active in band shows and has composed and improvised music for multimedia theatre performances. He has also led sound and video workshops for local institutions. Sing Jantzen Tse received his Master of Fine Art at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and has been supported by soundpocket’s Artist Support Programme 2011–12.

地下鐵

27/7/24

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28/9/24

謝振聲

大小不一的電子屏幕、閃爍的扶手、金屬長凳,以及列車行駛中的熟悉聲景,擅於將不同事物拼湊的謝,將這個不斷浮現於腦海的港鐵車廂碎片,最終搬運至此。《地下鐵》作為謝振聲其中一件港味十足的裝置作品,其提取了與交通工具、公共街道及休憩公園相關的物件。透過多屏幕和長年累月收集的聲音複合解構的運用,喚起一種感官超載的沉浸式體驗。

由六個並排近乎平視的錄像屏幕上,短片《唐儷玲 : 隨你所想文化遊(2024)》呈現了一位導遊對繁華喧鬧的香港的介紹,與我們共同穿梭於熙熙攘攘的公共屋邨以及繁忙的購物區。她的解說由精心設計,置於頭頂的揚聲器傳遞,藉此模仿老舊公共廣播的磨損音質。同一組屏幕緊接播放另一件作品《去來往返程步禮們 (2024)》。在大型立式螢幕展示著在地鐵車廂各自忙碌的一系列乘客,乘客們被放大的舉動、定格的神情,建構出香港日常生活的縮影。前來探索車廂的觀眾(亦是乘客)觀賞著眼前被收錄的乘客們,如同卞之琳的《斷章》 “你站在橋上看風景,看風景的人在樓上看你”,賦予了詩意般互動,忙碌中的都市人,風景的主體意識到底從何而來。

在頭頂上方,小型錄像屏幕循環播放著效仿的樓盤廣告,以及受不同媒介潮流啟發的舞蹈教程視頻,充滿詼諧和自我批判。影像裝置將公共和私人空間、室內與室外空間並置,進一步探索了日常生活中的圖像和消費的社會層面。

謝氏更感興趣的是對城市心理地理學的展現,其結合了他自疫情期間拍攝的鏡頭與家人保留在VHS錄影帶上的珍貴童年回憶片段。謝氏所揉合的懷舊色彩以及透過導遊的視角重塑的日常的城市景觀,其靈感來源於90年代電視廣告使用的美學語言,這類廣告宣傳香港是完美的「中西合璧」旅遊熱點,吸引著來自世界各地的遊客。隨之是非典疫情爆發後來自內地的旅客激增,反映了2003年香港旅遊發展局推行「全球旅遊復興」計劃的結果,該計畫促進了中港間更暢順的通行。大量遊客的湧入加劇了中港文化碰撞,不同的習性及禮儀,所產生的矛盾在充滿審視的公共交通工具中,尤其港鐵車廂更顯張力。就如地下鐵是一種容許事情發生的場地,這次展覽也希望達到同樣的效果。該裝置本身將充當一個平台,邀請及促進各種行為藝術家和表演者在展期的兩個月內出現,歡迎觀眾參與。

最後,謝氏對於作為跨越時空的地鐵列車充滿興趣。列車流動於地理邊界之間,連結記憶、對往事的懷念及對迷茫未來的集體焦慮。地下鐵個展迴避了對藝術家家鄉不斷變遷的城市景觀進行說教式評論,而是叩問導遊作為中介者和敘述者的象徵意義——當使用「他者」的語言來敘述自己的家鄉時,意味著什麼?一個城市如何能被那些描述它的人所「擁有」?

謝振聲的創作圍繞著對語言與溝通、城市各樣風景物像與聲音的關注。藉創作表達人與城市或物件、人與人及人與時間中不可割捨又互相糾纏的關係。喜於應用不同物料,聲音錄像等多媒體作創作媒介。2012年於劇場演出實驗聲音作品《語言》系列,並受邀到中港台三地參與不同類型的實驗聲音表演節目演出。2011至2015年間分別在非洲、英國及印度進行藝術交流或駐場藝術創作。2017 年與友人創立「打邊爐創作室」,致力以團隊形式創造更多錄像作品,以探索聲音、錄像與虛擬實境(VR)及擴增實境(AR)等互動裝置式的媒體。作為音樂人亦活躍於樂隊演出,並參與不同媒體劇場與製作,及帶領不同的聲音工作坊與影像教學。謝振聲畢業於中文大學藝術系碩士,為聲音掏腰包「藝術家支援計劃」2011-12 年度獲選藝術家。

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