Kinematic Cache (cassette)

Kinematic Cache (cassette)
Author: YL Hsueh
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Size: 12 x 17 cm
Weight: 85 g
Binding: -
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Availability: In stock
Price: €31.00
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Product Description

The soundscape work is based on my earlier project “Lost Ethnography of (post)Mountain”, which was an audiovisual field research I had conducted in the summer of 2021, in which I examined the only highway that runs through the northern wing of the Hsuehshan Mountain Range on the island of Taiwan: Hsuehshan Tunnel. For me personally, the tunnel itself feels like a peculiar space. It can serve as a shuttling passage and at the same time still be a closed space. From the perspective of the mountain, the Hsuehshan Tunnel is a small part that has been hollowed out. Regarding it as a kind of archaeological site of non-human groups, I attempt to depict the movements by collecting soundscapes and geo-referenced data, observing its interpretation and the topographical comparison by being personally present during the field surveys.

Inspired by the background meaning of Geocaching, the work could also refer to the broad definition of “Kinematic”: the position of an object in space changes over time. The sound route are used as the path of my previous field research, and the sounds collected at the site are taken as a way of describing “the motion state”, which are seen as caches hidden or left at the site. These caches are then collected and compiled into soundscape works, named “Kinematic Cache”.

The sound work is recorded and duplicated on the cassette tape with the five Kinematic Caches. The C-45 cassette tape, which with approximately 22 minutes of recording time on each side of the soundscape blend, is composed of the five Kinematic Caches in the region, constructing either documentary or imaginary narrative chapters, which are:

Anecdote
Rock
Disappeared Mileage
Niche (in ecology)
Whisper

When the Anthropocene has become a geological age, one can speculate on the relationship between nature and culture, and between human and non-human groups. If the (biological) evolution of a certain species has come to an end, can the retracing of their vanishing paths be regarded as a kind of “spiritual evolution”? From the discussion of landscape interpretation (storytelling), more hidden meanings, sensory perception and imagination are, therefore, found.

The implication of the soundscape is presented through the cassette tape to run and play, and to take the sound as an infinitely varying form to describe the motion state; the audience can listen, operate, and even erase the sound freely. The sound information can be recorded and stored again.

Like depicting activities of the landscape, it may be complete or it may be like what is lost in the fragmented memory and ruins, which is the intention of the tape recording itself as part of the work. Through the purchase of the soundscape work (tape), the audiences can operate, play and listen by themselves, as a possibility of the participatory project.