Title: relativity +/- RAW
Form: Sound installation
Year: 2011
Length: 17 minutes loop
Media: Stainless steel, iron, cardioid microphone, electric heater, computer
The slight changes in our daily lives are hard to detect; perhaps it is doable, but it is difficult for our senses to describe precisely these changes using numerical and quantitative data. During the residency period in Tokyo, Chang Yung-Ta noticed that aluminum windows created a minute sounds due to its shrinking and expanding in winter. When these shrinking and expanding happen because of the subtle temperature change, our skin is a great detector of the difference but it is unable to differentiate precise and subtle changes—it can only be compared to one another.
With a special heating device, the internal special structure undergoes a slight change of temperature, causes a contraction and breathing like rhythm. Under the relatively calm exterior, a faint delicate sound pulsates. “Relatively +/-“ Raw has two metal heating devices, with one of these heating devices cut open to show the internal structure and state, including the glowing red hot electric system. The other heating device keeps its original form, letting the audience directly see the heating and cooling as well as the changes is sound due to this change of temperature. The heating device heats and cools with a loop of 17 minutes. When one of these heating devices heats up, the other cools down. Two microphones, each recording the sound of a heating device separately, stream the two sets of sound into a pair of earphones so that the left ear and right ear are playing contrary sounds. Two monitors display sounds and images of each heating devices that recording in a studio room separately.
