︎

CARAVANSERAIS

/ kærəˈvænsəˌraɪ /
Research


Project 1
Sonic Ecology
  1. Curatorial Statement
  2. Listening to Ecosystems from Interdisciplinary Perspectives
  3. Music and Activism
  4. The Vigil of Debris
  5. The Recycling Concerto
  6. The Unexpected Guest


Project 2
Music & Moving Image
  1. Curatorial Statement
  2. Water, The First Body
  3. Light in Infinite Darkness
  4. Kyager
  5. The Moments


Project 3
Naamyam Creative Research 
南音創意研究
  1. 策展人的話
  2. 南音的互動
  3. 戲台南音賞析
  4. 南音創意研究〈客途秋恨〉MV創意對談: 許敖山x杜泳
  5. 南音飄揚未定
  6. 香港南音之永劫回歸？
  7. 南音︰起點抑或歸處？──「南音新創作展演」的兩種實驗
  8. 傳統音樂的突破？南音未來之路——「南音研究計劃」


Project 4
Contain
  1. Genesis
  2. This is water
  3. Modul-ation
  4. Often easy, sometimes impossible
  5. Sensations of getting lost





The content of CARAVANSERAIS does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region provides funding support to CARAVANSERAIS only, but does not otherwise take part in it.  Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the materials/activities (or by members of the GRANTEE’s team) are those of the organisers of CARAVANSERAIS only and do not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Mark

The Moments

Words from the composer and director-animator

中文版本︎


Director and Animator: Yu Wing-yan
Music Composer: Chan Ting-cheung Tim
2021 ｜ Video｜7'30"｜ Black & White


Tim Chan 
percussionist, composer, videographer

The Moments, which Yu Wing-yan and I created, is inspired by the book with the same title written by Taiwanese book author-illustrator Jimmy Liao. “The Moments” is a book that I really like (it is about photos and images). Coincidentally the theme of this multimedia concert was “the combination of sound and “video”, so I decided to use the English title of this book as my work’s title. I wanted to explore and integrate my uncle's photography in this work. As a native of Hong Kong, when I was savoring the “old Hong Kong” captured with my uncle's Hasselblad camera, I was inspired by the people, events, objects, and places in these pictures. Photos record not just the things seen by our naked eye, but also the memories that the captured events or objects symbolise. If we dive deeper into the art of photography, we can get a sense of the photographer’s attitude towards life from the materials. It is an interpretation of truth, an imagination of time - “past, present, future” - which derives an inseparable relationship and association with the title of this work.


The title reflects the structural thinking and developmental logic of the music in this work. The passage-like nature of this work is one of the characteristics of it - I try to explore the charm and characteristics of different eras in Hong Kong by deliberately treating the melody in different passages. As I mentioned that The Moments is a reflection on the “people, events, things and places” to some extent, and “people” has a significant influence on me. I used to work closely with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble - whether as the orchestra administrative assistant or musician, these invaluable moments with this organisation are forever engraved in my heart, and that inspired me to compose for the musicians who I admire. I am very grateful that I could collaborate with William (violist), Simon (bassist) and Matt (percussionist), and these musicians represent three different generations’ musical philosophies and values. Their different views contrast with the exploration of the “past, present and future” in this work, as if to abstract the concept of the work, in other words, to materialize the idea through the “person” element of the musicians.


I cannot talk more about image and visual processing without mentioning my collaboration with Yu Wing-yan. The creation of music and images synchronised on many levels, but the premise of simultaneous creation was a very close back-and-forth discussion and reflection, especially in the control of the video clips, because we decided early on that both music and video would be controlled live on site. Things had to be adjusted during the creative process, for instance in certain passages, video took on the primary role and music became secondary. During the performance, what the audience saw is not a synthesised video footage, but a list of visual elements adjusted on site in response to the live musical performance. People usually associate multimedia music-image performances with “synchronisation”, but in this creative process, we managed to get out of the orthodox idea that music and image must be “synchronized”, and instead we retained the illusion of “synchronization” through the interaction of chamber music.


The success of The Moments' premiere is not only attributed to Yu Wing-yan and I, but also to the entire team of theatre staff on the day of the performance.




Yu Wing-yan
director and animator

Using analog photographs taken in the old Hong Kong, I tried to animate them by a digital program with a special rhythm accompanied with newly composed music. It is a reflection on the current context of HK, in which some of the moment was captured but some are lost and cannot ever be found again.


Disappear in a flash.
Silence in a splash.








The experimental music video was firstly screened on Jun 2021, with live musician performing on stage.


Programme presented by Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. Programme Details: https://www.hongkongnewmusic.org/mmi4




Biographies


Tim Chan


Tim Chan 

Tim Chan Ting-cheung is composer, instrument maker and percussionist. He creates music and sound to express his feelings about interpersonal interactions and his hopes for Hong Kong. He has made music to open the audience’s ears to the unique soundscape sang by birds in Hong Kong, played taiko to raise awareness of marine ecology, and created live music for the mythical creature Lu Ting. Lately, reflecting on human-animal coexistence, he performed in Lifelike, a work by composer Charles KWONG at the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens.



Yu Wing-yan


Yu Wing-yan


Yu concerns interrelation between arts, creators and its receivers. She believes the undiscoverable sensation and intelligence could be portrayed in art.

With experiences of documenting creative process of various HK makers, she is recently interested in the experimentality of videography, computer software and sound . She is also keen on expanding the potential of drawing and animation as a medium of storytelling. Her works have been shown in Hong Kong, Denmark, London, by Hong Kong Arts Centre (2021), Hong Kong Museum of Art (2019), Dynamo (2018), SPLICE (2018), The Fringe Club (2017), Cattle Depot Artists Village (2017), JCCAC (2017), RTHK (2016), and have also been published in "Our Manifesto II: Videography, Documentary Impulse" (2021), "土瓜灣敘事（Spicy Fish Cultural Production) " (2021), "Love in the Time of Coronavirus (2021), Documentary: 候鳥 (2018), among others. In 2017, she collaborated with Hong Kong composer Daniel Lo and made the video for his Mary’s Chalk Circle for narration, unaccompanied choir and video.

Yu received her Bachelor of Arts (Visual Studies) from Lingnan University in 2011, and her Master of Fine Art (Creative Media) from School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong in 2019. She is now a Media Lab Tutor at HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity.

https://www.yuwingyan.com/themoment