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WorkHUI Fong Wah (Phoebe)

Vexation

name: HUI Fong Wah (Phoebe)
title: Vexation
type: MFA

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.