Image Courtesy: Suki Chan

Suki explains “I am creating an art installation that is about how people imagine revolution and I am asking local residents to participate. Your voices (only) will be used as part of the installation – which will be exhibited at Aspex Gallery in May to July 2012.

Those interested will be invited to a sound recording studio at the University of Portsmouth where they will be asked to describe their own modern day revolution. This might be personal, social, cultural, philosophical, technological, as well as political revolution. I am seeking a range of ideas from small personal revolutions that improve the daily life of one person, to ambitious ideas attempting to solve recurrent social ills, such as housing, distribution of money, debt, social welfare, education, the prison system, etc.”

What would you like to change?

Recording sessions will take place Oct – Dec 2011.  Place and time to be confirmed.  Each contributor will be recorded individually and each session will last max 20 minutes.

Participants will be credited as contributors to the project and will receive invites to the exhibitions.

To register your interest, please email: sukichan@hotmail.co.uk
More information on the artist: www.sukichan.co.uk

For more information on the project – see below.

A Hundred Seas Rising

Installation with sound, 100 school tables, texts and books

Inspired by Dicken’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities, A Hundred Seas Rising explores how literature might be implicated in the imagination and trajectories of revolutions. The installation will use the sound of 100 individual voices as a sculptural material, re-imagining Dicken’s revolutionary mob sonically by creating surges of ideological thought that reverberate across the gallery space.

In the summer of 1957, the Hundred Flowers Movement in China invited a variety of views and solutions to national policy issues. The name of the movement originated from a poem: “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.” This movement was the first of its kind in the history of the People’s Republic of China in which the government opened up to ideological criticisms from the general public. The campaign grew in momentum, from expressions of minor issues of a few to increasingly large numbers of intellectuals voicing their radical ideas, including the overthrowing of the government. Six weeks into the campaign, threatened by the overwhelming criticisms of the people, Mao Tse-tung, ordered a halt to the campaign. The result of the Hundred Flowers campaign was the Anti-Rightist Movement in which ideas against the government were suppressed, leading to the loss of individual rights and persecution.

Local residents, including students from the University of Portsmouth, colleges and schools will be invited to participate in the imagination of modern day revolutions. These might be personal, social, cultural, philosophical, technological, as well as political revolutions. They will be encouraged to describe the cause or structure they would like to transform, the motivating ideology for this change -including books that might have inspired their ideas, how they would mobilise others, the objectives of the revolution and how this would be achieved, i.e. through peaceful or violent means. The voice of each student will be recorded individually and each recording (edited to about 10 mins max) will be assigned to one of the school desks, arranged in rows like a classroom environment. It is intended that the students represent a cross-section of views from different cultural and social backgrounds. Teachers of the institutions may provide some guidance as to the selection of students. The topics for discussion might range from small personal revolutions that perhaps improves the daily life of one person, to ambitious ideas attempting to solve recurrent social ills, such as housing, distribution of money, debt, social welfare, education, the prison system, etc. Dicken’s own education came to an abrupt end when his father spent beyond his means and was imprisoned. In many of Dicken’s novels, socio-economic reform was a recurrent theme. It is my intention that this artwork creates an open dialogue without censorship.

The audience will be able to move amongst the rows of tables and the cacophony of voices. They would be able to choose their own path in this space, to sit at a table and intimately connect with the disembodied voice – with their unique history, their concerns. The displacement of the voice conceals the identity of the speaker and allows the voice of the “other” to be heard on equal footing. There is the possibility of hearing something you may not eventually agree with, or dedicating your time to a person who belongs to a social group you may not normally sympathise with. A transcript of the individual dialogue would be available on each table.

Sometimes the room may be quiet and only one or a few voices may be heard in different parts of the space. From those points, like a drop in the ocean creating a rippling effect, voices nearby will start to speak, as if encouraged by the first to speak out. At times, the voices may come together to form waves, surges of volume across the gallery space, drawing strength from each other as they come together, in order to be heard.  As the waves of voices gathers momentum and becomes dramatic, it may be impossible to hear any one singular voice and the audience may feel overwhelmed by the force of the voices. Then quiet once more.

As well as asserting the voice of the individual, A Hundred Seas Rising explores how the complex phenomenon of revolution might evolve in the future. The etymology of the word “Revolution” originates from the Latin verb, revolvere (to revolve). It was first used in astronomy and was applied to the motion of the planets before passing into the vocabulary of astrologers in the sixteenth century, when it came to designate abrupt and unforeseen events determined by the conjunction of planets. Political usage of the word appeared in England in the seventeenth century. During the French revolution, the opportunity to realise the Enlightenment-ideals was seized and revolution came to mean a new world order increasingly through violent means.

Zoe enjoyed the variety of academic approaches used at Master's level

I’m fascinated by the concept of ordinary people finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances and dealing with the kind of extreme situations that happen only during war time. I studied history as an undergraduate then took a year to get some useful office experience before embarking on a Master’s.

What appealed to me about the structure of this course was the flexibility and scope for independent study within your area of interest. For my dissertation I’ve chosen to investigate Germanophobia – hostility towards German civilians in Britain during the First World War. Other people are looking at subjects such as terrorism in the twentieth century and the experiences of women in wartime.

The course at Portsmouth involves not only the History Department, but academics from other disciplines within the University who get involved by running guest seminars. I enjoyed being introduced to different academic approaches and felt that this helped us expand our horizons as researchers.

Quick Link:
History Of War, Culture And Society – MA