Sap Sonic, 2023
Four-channel sound installation, green LED tube lights, 14:30 min
Sap Script, 2023
White latex paint, black enamel paint
Passages: SEA AiR – Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
Four-channel sound installation, green LED tube lights, 14:30 min
Sap Script, 2023
White latex paint, black enamel paint
Passages: SEA AiR – Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
Sap Sonic is a four-channel sound installation that probes into the sonification of images, transforming visual archives into an exercise in listening. Drawing from the Sumatra Caoutchouc Company album, a colonial-era photographic record from the Rijksmusem Collection which documents the rubber plantations of Pernantian and Brussels of Sumatra, the installation reimagines these visuals through an auditory lens. Sap Sonic employs inference, extrapolation, and speculative reconstruction to unearth the latent sonic possibilities embedded within these images.
Translating the textures, gestures, and absences within the photographs into sound, the work challenges the authority of the visual archive, questioning what remains unseen, unheard, or deliberately omitted from colonial records. Through layered compositions incorporating found sound archives and synthesized elements, Sap Sonic materializes the labour, extraction, and ecological entanglements suggested by these images. The installation functions as an auditory archaeology, amplifying the unspoken aural histories that persist beneath the surface, offering a multi-sensory engagement with memory, industry, and spectral presence.
Sap Script extends upon Sap Sonic, reinterpreting its sonic vocabulary to move beyond the plantation as both a verb and a noun. The accompanying wall text, “Whirring Forces, Humming Fields,” explores the materiality of language and inscription, transforming text into a visual embodiment of sound. Rendered in white latex paint against a black oil enamel background, the text assumes a spectral presence. Its composition visually resonates with the undulations of sound waves and regimented linearity of rubber tree plantations. Both Sap Script and Sap Sonic collectively urge an active reconsideration of archival silence and the potential for auditory reclamation.
Lettering Design: Studio Darius Ou
Images Credits: NTU CCA Singapore
Translating the textures, gestures, and absences within the photographs into sound, the work challenges the authority of the visual archive, questioning what remains unseen, unheard, or deliberately omitted from colonial records. Through layered compositions incorporating found sound archives and synthesized elements, Sap Sonic materializes the labour, extraction, and ecological entanglements suggested by these images. The installation functions as an auditory archaeology, amplifying the unspoken aural histories that persist beneath the surface, offering a multi-sensory engagement with memory, industry, and spectral presence.
Sap Script extends upon Sap Sonic, reinterpreting its sonic vocabulary to move beyond the plantation as both a verb and a noun. The accompanying wall text, “Whirring Forces, Humming Fields,” explores the materiality of language and inscription, transforming text into a visual embodiment of sound. Rendered in white latex paint against a black oil enamel background, the text assumes a spectral presence. Its composition visually resonates with the undulations of sound waves and regimented linearity of rubber tree plantations. Both Sap Script and Sap Sonic collectively urge an active reconsideration of archival silence and the potential for auditory reclamation.
Lettering Design: Studio Darius Ou
Images Credits: NTU CCA Singapore