The bianzhong is an ancient Chinese instrument consisting of bronze bells to be played melodically. In 1978 a set of bells were unearthed in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng. They were made in 433BC. The bells were placed in the tomb to be unplayed, silent, hidden. This use of an acoustic instrument resonates with contemporary sound works. The symbolism of silence is frequent in ancient Chinese culture.
In 800AD there lived Han-Shan and Shih-Te, two hermits living in the T’ien-t’ai Mountains of Chekiang Province, in Eastern China. They were reclusive radicals indulging in the joys of living, with a mind of Taoism. Ascetic, zen, metaphysical exploration, immersed in nature… Hundreds of poems were found carved onto stones and trees and are associated with Han-Shan and Shih-Te. Even if they never existed they come to symbolise an aesthetic solitude that is fundamental to the poetry of zen. Interestingly Gary Snyder was one of the first to translate their poems into English, who is described as a a poet and an “environmental activist with anarchoprimitivist leanings.” And the two old anarchist mountain bums often wrote about sound and silence, and we see a long history of environmentalism in Sound Arts.
“Anarcho-primitivism is a political ideology that advocates a return to non-“civilized” ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies. Anarcho-primitivists critique the origins and progress of the Industrial Revolution and industrial society. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence during the Neolithic Revolution gave rise to coercion, social alienation and social stratification.”
The mountain poets were in love with the natural world. Here is one of Han Shan’s poems.
Thirty years in this world, I wandered ten thousand miles, By rivers, buried deep in grass, In borderlands, where red dust flies. Tasted drugs, still not Immortal, Read books, wrote histories. Now I’m back at Cold Mountain, Head in the stream, cleanse my ears.
There is a sense of purity, beyond knowledge or drugs or searching for_. Just the sound of the stream, “cleanse my ears”, washing the human condition of an impurity. The primacy of sound in Chinese poetry has had global influence. In Snyder’s book “Regarding The Wave” he connects englightenment to hearing, sound waves as a way in, inspired by the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, Kuan Yin, who’s name translates to “regarding the sound waves.”
It appears that Taoism and Buddhism promote attention beyond the visual to include the sonic environment, and therefore sound in China has been listened to. Phonography is popular in China. It is a desciption of laws of the human speech, or sounds uttered by the organs of speech. Yao writes that Chinese phonography celebrate the domain of human affairs, the “non-utopian, the this-worldy, the social, the interpersonal, the personal, the bodily…” How wonderful! A celebration of the flawed humanity we engage from within, the noise that has spread, an admiration that doesn’t seem to match Western anarcho-primitivism, or Western phonography which apparently has embedded the conceptual dichotomy of man vs nature.
I’m curious about these relationships and a dysfunction: a poetry tradition acknowledging the beauty of natural sound, of nature and peace, hermitage, that has perhaps been interpreted in a Western audience as a utopia to return to, but current Chinese phonography is celebrating techno-urban human affairs. Snyder was friends with Keruoac and they tried their best to dissolve the ego to transcend to the top of the mountain. How the West struggles to interpret Eastern philosophy! Errors of translation?
How is Ancient China being interpreted, anywhere? It’s certainly mentioned throughout the article, Sound Art in China. David Toop doesn’t go back more than a few decades, and oat milk is everywhere now. Running forwards the West will grab anything. Running away?
I thought it was awful to only imagine China as something to compare/contrast to the “West”. But then I cannot approach it another way, there are barriers such as language and conditionment. I cannot get the West or China out of my head! I wonder does the technical process of applying nationhood to sound work?
