2019 / revised 2020

2 channels-video with 2-channel sound, 3d printed PLA, repurposed found objects (opium pipe, tourist instrument, original print edition of John Barrow’s Travels in China); video duration 6:17 and 25:34

Music composition, text, set design, video editing
Samson Young

Performance
Geneva Fung, Samson Young, the Chinese University of Hong Kong Chorus conducted by Leon Chu, and Christie Wong

Voice over
Dr. Christian Weikop

Videography
Ip Yiu Tung Zachary, Lau Chun Sing, Fung Kai Cheuk, Leung Tin Chun Jimmy, Lee Chun Wai, Leung Ho Sing

Production management
@ Jones Lee Production: Christy Ko, Donna Loy, Vivian Leung, Chan Chak Kwan, Ray Wong, Jones Lee, “Jonathan,” Henry Fung, Edward Lau, “Rocky,” “Elephant,” “Him,” Sissy Tang

Sound recording
Samson Young, Teeda Lee

3d-printing technical support
Andrew Crowe @ Meta Objects

3d models
Modified from “Venus de Milo (Aphrodite of Milos)” & “Discobolus (The Discus Thrower)”, SMK National Gallery of Denmark @Turbosquid; “The Three Graces at the Hermitage Museum, Russia” & “Michelangelo's David in the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence, Italy”, Peter Edwards (Cool3DModels) @Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2445605) & (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2445538), CC by 2.0; “Robin the thinker“, lampmaker @Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34343), CC by 2.0; ”The Thinker at the Musée Rodin, France“, Bruce Stevens @Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2201627), CC by 2.0; ”Marsyas“, The Metropolitan Museum of Art @Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24042), CC by-sa 3.0.

Special thanks to
Alex Rehding; Tessa Giblin; Talbot Rice Gallery, St. Cecilia‘s Hall, and the Reid School of Music at the University of Edinburgh

Photos
Lily Yiyi Chan

”For this work, the artist conducted a research project that follows the genealogy of the Chinese folk song Molihua (Jasmine Flower), a tune of some national significance that is frequently performed in the context of cultural diplomacy - official state visits and the olympics, for instance. The tune can also be heard as a quotation in the famous opera Turandot. Molihua was ‘imported’ into Europe through the British Empire’s encounter with the imperial Qing court during the Macartney Embassy, and after a period of propagation and rearrangement in Europe, the tune was ‘re-imported’ back into China in its modified form. The artist compares and contrasts the song’s transmission history with that of the melody of Japanese Togaku - court music that was imported into Japan from China during the Tang dynasty, which has since become as one of few extant sources of Tang music. In one of the video channels, a horse lectures the audience on the complexity of musical genealogy. In another channel, we hear an original composition that is played by, among other instruments, a touristic souvenir-instrument. Through the work, the artist examines the interactions that occur when a piece of music crosses cultures, to consider what it means to hear with the ears of another, and questions the notions of cultural purity and authenticity at large.”