HUI Fong Wah  (Phoebe)

[Previous](#) / [Next image](#) () Vexation 2012-2013 wood, graphite, motor, electronics, speakers, conductive tape, wires, glass 48” x 20” x 20” (kinetic), 16” x 19” x 11” (print) Los Angeles “Vexation” is a musical instrument built especially to play Erik Satie’s composition “Vexation”. Satie apparently instructed that the same music should be played 840 times. I wanted to make a work that demands a longer attention span and cannot be produced and consumed immediately. I am interested in the experience of duration involved in the act of listening to repeated sounds. Repetition is difference, since the same sounds take on a different significance as they are replayed. Inspired by Samuel Biderman’s octave spinet, which is a small and special type of harpsichord that combined keyboard with chess and backgammon board or jewel box, “Vexation” is an electronic instrument that builds upon traditional drawing pencils and woodwork together with modern electronics. I made a moving wooden cylinder wherein I drew marks using pencils of different lead sizes. These pencil marks function as a score. I also designed my own electrical circuit. The contact between the sound circuit and the pencil marks produces audible music. The cylinder can also be seen as a sculptural piece. Its cylinder shape evokes my understanding of vexation - an endless circulation. In “vexation”, I tried to collapse score and performance: The drawing in itself is the physical material that generates the tone without any human intermediary. The functional circuit is no longer split from the body in which it is embedded. The structure of the music is made clear to the visitor, since the score is displayed as an integral element of the sculpture. I am interested in transforming existing artworks, presenting them using new forms of notation or mechanical instruments, in order to raise the question: is this the same artwork? When does something become a different work of art? Who defines the identity of the artwork? Is this work a new manifestation of the same composition? My main purpose is to raise the question concerning the identity of the artwork across its various physical forms, not to give a final answer to this question.

There are two objects in a plain beige room: an oversized book suspended in the air and a machine to its right. The machine has six speakers and one large spinning cylinder with a string attached, all of which are supported by a thin beige wooden structur

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There is a plain beige wooden block shaped in the form of an open book suspended in air. The wood has brown inscriptions. The left block has the inscriptions "NOTE DE L'AUTER" underlined with text too small to read under it, then "NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR" un

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This is a photo taken inside a large cylinder so that only a portion of the actual room can be seen. The cylinder has wooden poles further covering some parts of the view. In the room are some people who seem to be observing things on the wall.

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This is a light beige wooden machine with a cylinder on the top and six speakers on the bottom. Each speaker and the cylinder has one string attached to it. The machine is supported with thin beige wooden sticks.

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This is a close up of the cylinder on top of the light beige machine. It seems to have small black rectangles on it in a particular pattern, likely so that the machine can read the rectangles, which are arranged in lines, and interpret music of some kind.

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This is a diagonal view of the light beige machine and book suspended in the air. The machine is supported by thin wooden beams and has a cylindrical figure and six speakers, all with lines coming out of them. The text in the book is too small and faint t

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This is a close up picture of the speakers on a machine. There is electrical wiring and one string coming out of each speaker. The machine is light beige.

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Vexation

[Previous](#) / [Next image](#) () Process with Body, Water & Pendulums 2009-2011, 2016 Steel, wire, wood, electronics, speakers Size varies “Process with body, water & pendulums” is a further development of an early piece called “Granular graph”. Inspired by harmonograph, a mechanical apparatus invented by the Scottish mathematician Hugh Blackburn in the mid 19th century. Harmonograph became popular with its capacity to create beautiful geometric patterns that depicted the scientific theories in music. The simplest harmonograph consists of two pendulums with one being connected to paper and the other to a pen. When the pendulums move, the rhythm of music is hereby recorded in a drawn pattern. The presented version of harmonograph created by applying electronic technology. The paper and pen, in her translation, are replaced with a water pool, and the pendulums become sensors atop two swings on which audiences can sit or stand to become part of the piece. The swinging movements, coupled with the energy and tension produced by the audience, cause waves on the water which reveals the scientific rhythm in music. The movements also provide the source for making sounds. The scientific theories in music are thereby made visible and audible. And the conventional one-direction viewing experience is revolutionized with the audience being made part of the art.

This is a photo of a device that seems to be for drawing. There is a pen and paper pad in the foreground of the picture. The pen is held up by a wooden rod and a metal attachment. The paper pad and wooden tool are supported by a dark block of wood.

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This is a photo of a stage light that is relatively close to the ground pointing down. The stage light has a rectangular box of black material suspended in the air around it. There are some abstract light reflections on the wall.

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This is a photo taken from an angled birds-eye view. There is a stick in the middle of a circular weight-looking item. There is "50" and "--LB--" legible on the circular weight. The focus of the photo is the weight. There is the dark shadow of the object 

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This is a diagonally angled photo of two main objects: a swing and a stage light. The swing is dark wood and has two chains to support it on either side. The stage light is angled downwards, facing the floor, and has a rectangular shaped box suspended in 

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This is a photo of a device with three thin black legs and two long stick-like items that look like ski poles not long enough to touch the ground attached to it. In the background, there is a swing, and behind that, there is a stage light facing downward 

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This is a photo of a light skinned person taking a picture of a swing with a phone. The swing is in the blurry background.

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This is a picture of a pencil, shown by its shadow to be attached to a rod, drawing light, unintelligible lines on a white paper pad.

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This is an angled photo of a stage light that is relatively close to the ground pointing down. The stage light has a rectangular box of black material suspended in the air around it. There are some abstract light reflections on the wall.

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This is an angled photo of a device with three thin black legs (one on one side, two on the other) and two long stick-like items that look like ski poles not long enough to touch the ground attached to it. In the background, there is a swing, and behind t

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This is an angled photo of a device with three thin black legs and two long stick-like items that look like ski poles not long enough to touch the ground attached to it. In the background, there is a swing, and behind that, there is a stage light facing d

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This is a wide shot photo of a room with multiple sparsely located objects in it. On the far left, there is a lighted, white screen. In the middle left, there is a TV turned off and a swing. In the middle right, there is a strip of black material, a stage

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There are two swings and a stage light facing downward and a strip of black material. There is one swing on the far left back and one swing closer to the camera on the right. In the far right corner is the stage light.

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This is an angled photo of a stage light that is relatively close to the ground pointing down. The stage light has a rectangular box of black material suspended in the air around it. There are some abstract light reflections on the wall. In the right half

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This is an angled photo of a stage light that is relatively close to the ground pointing down. The stage light has a rectangular box of black material suspended in the air around it. There are some abstract light reflections on the wall. In the left half 

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This is a photo of a stage light facing downward and a rectangular device suspended close to the ground and made of a black material.

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This is a close up picture of a device with three thin black legs and two long stick-like items that look like ski poles not long enough to touch the ground attached to it.

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This is a photo of a person as the subject. There is a pan of what seems to be a liquid that is illuminated, and its reflection is illuminating the wall. The person is not lit, so only the shadow can be seen.

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This is a close up of a pencil and white paper pad. The pencil is held by a metal tool that is connected to a long, thin wooden rod. There seems to be nothing drawn on the paper.

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Process with Body, Water & Pendulums 

“Granular Graph” is an audio-visual interactive instrument about musical gesture and its notation. The idea is inspired by a pendulum-based scientific instrument called Harmonograph. In its simplest version, two pendulums are suspended through holes in a table. The swinging pendulums cause an attached pen to move, thus creating a curvaceous geometric image on paper that represents harmonies and intervals in musical scales. “Graph” not only re-appropriates the idea of a mechanism by inviting audiences to form a living pendulum through playing on swings, but uses water function as paper, to graph the amount of energy, effort and tension involved in causing the sounds. Any visitor can play the instrument by sitting or standing on one of two swings. The resulting pendular movements alter the waterflow in a tank, generating not only a vibrating pattern but also sounds. The sounds and images can be regarded as forms of dynamic notation that graphically and kinetically represent the audience’s gesture and energy expenditure.

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Granular Graph II

Wordplay II 2012 Toy piano, solenoid, electronics, wires, printed circuit board, acrylic, clamps, digital print on watercolor paper, 1/3 28” x 26” x 14” (kinetic), 34” x 26” x 2” (print) Tokyo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles Duration: Around 7-minute (4 movements with 30s intermission) Wordplay is a kinetic sonic piece about the relationship between music and text. I authored custom software that identifies all words in a British dictionary containing only the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G and R. I chose those letters because A to G are the names of the musical notes used in the western classical music system, and I chose “R” as the representation of “rest”. This dictionary contains words that not only can be found in an ordinary dictionary, but can also be treated as a score playable by a musical instrument. Any word consists of notes that can be played. A rule can be used to establish a correspondence between letters and sounds, so that a sentence can be translated into a musical line. Words and letters can be used as generative rules to make sounds by defining an arbitrary system of correspondences. Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure emphasized that the relationship between letter-signs (signifiers) and the concepts they signify is an arbitrary convention. The act of mis-displacing the words of the English language in Music language shows the truth of language. The illusion that we are in control of language now breaks down. We are spoken by the rules of language, just as a computer is programmed to execute certain tasks. Such non-composed (non-harmonic) composition method also opens up our ideas of what constitutes music, and of the difference between music and writing.

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