Sound Installation - Tunnel and Room55, V&A South Kensington
Audio Architecture work again with Sub Jam following the previously incomplete project for Dashanzi International Arts Festival in 2007. This time Yan Jun and Ruan Qianrui worked with Experimenter En Couleur and Christian Krupa on an installation called 'Local Whispers'. This multi-faceted collaboration was first exhibited at the V&A Museum on the 27-28th February 2011. The experience involves natural and everyday sounds in an environment of silent moving image and physical objects captured and collected from China and the UK.

'Local Whispers' relates to human perception, the freedom of the imagination and the unreliability of human recollection. The first 'Local Whispers' installation was specifically arranged for the V&A's British Galleries Study Room 55 and to work with Cornelia Parker's 'Breathless' and the gallery above. Headphones lifted by white balloons play found sounds below Cornelia's dark cloud of squashed instruments and are restrained by physical objects. The visitors are invited to explore both sounds and the related objects, using the sound to set the immediate surroundings and object as a catalyst for the imagination. Through the circular gallery above the piece, rays of light augment the walls below with suggestive imagery fragmented by shadows.


Top and above: Main Local Whispers Installation in V&A Room 55. Photos: V&A.



Also exhibited were graphic image with sound, a series of posters representing Chinese cultural events, by Ruan Qianrui and improvised calligraphy by Ruan and Experimenter En Couleur, relating to the sounds and objects in Room 55. The calligraphy breaks free from its fixed traditional form to imply further meaning and emotions.


Tunnel Entrance Installation. Photo: V&A.



Calligraphy (detail) by EEC and Ruan Qianrui. Chinese ink on rice paper.