Making and Unmaking Freddom: Sound, Affect and Beijing A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Jing Wang June 2012 © 2012 Jing Wang. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled Making and Unmaking Freedom: Sound, Affect and Beijing by JING WANG has been approved for Interdisciplinary Arts and the College of Fine Arts by Marina L. Peterson Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts Charles A. McWeeny Dean, College of Fine Arts 3 ABSTRACT WANG, JING, Ph.D., June 2012, Interdisciplinary Arts Making and Unmaking Freedom: Sound, Affect and Beijing Director of Dissertation: Marina L. Peterson In this dissertation, I investigate the practice of sound art in the post-Tiananmen era in China. I define sound art as creative practices that use sound (including silence) as a major means of creation and expression. It is a genre that both connects and disturbs categories of visual arts and music. The driving question of this project is how the sign of freedom translated into a socio-cultural ideology, a value, and an impulse shapes and is shaped by a socio-cultural milieu that is itself changing under the influence of globalization. In other words, the project examines how freedom affects the social and the personal. At the same time, the project “unmakes” the sign to investigate the affect of freedom—the thing that slips away in the process of signification. Drawing from sound art practice, the project suggests that to be free is to be sensitive and open in everyday life, to sense beyond security, to place one’s self in crisis, and to become the body without organs (BwO). China’s sound art provides one of the best sites to examine how freedom (with its referents of neoliberalism, consumerism, and human rights, as well as 自在 [spontaneous becoming or self-existing]) is used, interpreted, felt, expressed and lived. In China’s sound art culture, there are activists who consider sound art a social tool to fight for democracy and social justice, avant-garde artists who criticize consumerism and capitalism in Chinese society, as well as musicians and artists who advocate anarchism 4 and alternative lifestyles. There are also artists who are less interested in making claims about political or social issues, but are more concerned with the practice of self through making good sound art works. The project argues that different kinds of freedom- searching acts have different political and social significances; even making good experimental artwork is a kind of social intervention by resisting existing political or social ideologies. In the dissertation, I discuss two spatial references of freedom in Beijing, Tiananmen Square and 798 Art District in chapter one. In chapter two, I outline the field of sound art culture in China during the post-Tiananmen era. Then, in chapter three, I analyze two collective affects, anxiety and powerlessness, related to a series of freedom- searching events in the sound art culture. In chapter four, I depict and analyze the characteristics of a utopian collective that practices experimental and free improvisational music in suburban Beijing. I further examine in chapter five how Beijing-based sound art scene connects to music subcultures in other cities, while reflecting on disconnections between sound art and China’s contemporary arts. Finally, in the conclusion, I propose how sound art practice might cultivate affective listening. Approved: _____________________________________________________________ Marina L. Peterson Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts 5 For my parents Wang Dengmin and Zhang Yuzhen 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would especially like to thank my advisor and mentor Marina Peterson for advising, critiquing and supporting this project. Without her insight, this would have been a much weaker project. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my committee members, Devika Chawla, Andrea Frohne, and Michael Gillespie, for their patience, advice, and insight. Yan Jun has been a source of inspiration and support for this project. His affirmative and positive energy made me believe this could be done. I also thank Wang Fan, Li Jianhong, Yao Dajunin, Lin Chi-wei, Feng Hao, Li Zenghui, Wang Ziheng, Li Yangyang and Raying Temple Collective, Wang Changcun, Wei Wei (Vavabond), Cao Junjun (Juncky), Freedom House Collective, Jiang Zhuyun (Jimu), Ruan Qianrui, He Xiaoyu, Wu Quan, He Guofeng (Xiaohe), Xu Yazhu, Bie Feng, and Zhou Jin. Without these musicians’ and artists’ practice and words, my projects would exist in vacuum. Also, without a serendipitous encounter and collaboration with Bruno Moynié at Sugar Jar in Beijing in 2008, this project would have had a different ethnographic trajectory. I would also like to thank Becca J. R. Lachman and Megan Villegas for working closely with me to proofread my writing. I am also grateful to Margaret Romoser, Nate Wallace, A. J. Predisik, Maaike Siegerist, Mark Greeven, and Fenghua Guo, who took time away from their own work to read parts of the project and provide helpful comments and suggestions. My sincere gratitude also goes to professors in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts, especially Dr. Dora Wilson, Dr. William Condee, Dr. Charles Buchanan, and Dr. 7 Vladimir Marchenkov; and colleagues Daniel Dennis, Monica Gontovnik, Rachel Linn, Max Tohline, Liu Yining, Hsin-ning Chang, Lily Wei, and Brian Harnetty. They have created an intellectual and academic home where I learn and grow. This project was made possible with the support of an IARTS graduate assistantship, grants from GSS, and the Student Enhancement Award from Ohio University. Finally, I reserve my deepest gratitude and love for my parents, for being supportive and understanding of the path I have chosen. 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract................................................................................................................................3 Dedication............................................................................................................................5 Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................6 List of Figures......................................................................................................................9 Preface ...............................................................................................................................11 Introduction .......................................................................................................................14 Chapter 1: Sounding Beijing .............................................................................................35 Chapter 2: A Thousand Origins of the Field of China's Sound Art...................................67 Chapter 3: Collective Affects: Anxiety and Powerlessness ............................................106 Chapter 4: The Utopia of Raying Temple and Free Improvisation..................................136 Chapter 5: Out of Beijing: Touring with Sub Jam...........................................................167 Conclusion: Affective Listening......................................................................................198 References .......................................................................................................................226 9 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Poster of Mini Midi 2008, Outside of 2 Kolegas Bar, Courtesy of Yan Jun ..27 Figure 2. Map of Beijing with markers of sites and places mentioned in the chapter....41 Figure 3. Tank Man of Tiananmen, June 4th, 1989.........................................................49 Figure 4: Fashion/Art show in UCCA, August 8 (photo by Author, 2010) ...................54 Figure 5: Sound artists invited for the sound production for the show. Li Daiguo plays flute, wearing one of Zhang Da’s designs. Wei Wei (a.k.a. Vavabond) works with Max/MSP on her laptop and effects. August 8 (photo by author, 2010) ....................55 Figure 6: UCCA entrance (photo by author, 2010) ........................................................57 Figure 7: 798 Old Factories, From Beijing 798: Reflections on “Factory” of Art.........60 Figure 8: 798 art district, July (photo by author, 2010)..................................................61 Figure 9: The front (left) and back (right) covers of Sub Jam fanzine...........................77 Figure 10: Free Music Issue 1, Oct. 1999 (Upper left), Free Music Issue 2, 2000 (Upper right), Free Music Issue 3, 2000 (Lower left), Free Music Issue 4, 2000 (Lower right)82 Figure 11: The covers of CHINA- The Sonic Avant-Garde, 2003, released by Post- Concrete..........................................................................................................................88 Figure 12: Posters of Sounding Beijing 2003.................................................................88 Figure 13: Poster of 2pi Music Festival 2006 (left), Poster of 2pi Festival 2007 (right)92 Figure 14: The poster of Frightened by Dog Live festival 2007 ....................................96 Figure 15: Posters of Sally Can’t Dance 2008 (above), 2009 (below, left), 2010 (below, right). ..............................................................................................................................98 Figure 16: (((Sunday Listening @798))) performance by Vavabond and Thee, Stranded Horse, July 20 (photo by author, 2008) ........................................................................101