Playing with sound in silence: FellowsFriday with Christine Sun Kim

Through visual art, composition and performance, deaf artistChristine SunKim explores ways of transmuting sound and silence to come to terms withher relationship with it. In the process, she challenges the ways in which thehearing take sound for granted. Here, she talks about her work and careerpath.

Did you always know you wanted to become an artist?

No, I just had a lot of small experiences. I remember my mother always tookme to the laundromat with her. To keep me busy, she’d draw pumpkins onnapkins. It was around Halloween time, and I would draw in all the differentfaces. Little things like that. I always liked church because at Sunday school,the Bible was taught using pictures. All these different experiences andexposures slowly added up to my life as an artist.

So I knew it was in me, but I was uncertain for a long time. When I first wentto grad school — I went to the School of Visual Arts — I had a hard time

Posted  by:  Karen  Eng   March  29,  2013  at  5:00  pm  EDT

Karen Eng, ‘Playing with sound in silence: Fellows Friday with Christine Sun Kim’, TED Blog, 29 March 2013

                                                                                         

expressing myself and I never really enjoyed painting, so I had to find abalance. And that was a struggle. Finding your path as an artist is difficult.So I feel really lucky that I’ve now found my way.

You talked about sound etiquette in your TED2013 Fellows talk. You

were told as a child to not make noise. How can you have known how

not to make noise if you couldn’t hear it? That must have been very

confusing.

It’s based on my intuition. I could sense people’s reactions. For example, inschool, if I dragged my feet on the ground, people would say, “Shhhh.” Myfamily’s Korean, so they’re somewhat somber and still. I tend to be loud withmy expressions, and my family would tell me to tone it down. I knew I wasvery animated, but that was my language. People always say, “It’s likeyou’re performing,” and I respond, “That’s my language.” It’s funny. Butyeah, I just had to follow social cues.

All the customs and social norms, all the rules were in my face every day. I’dgo into a theater and I knew that I’d have to sit, be quiet and walk slowly. Itwas learned behavior from people’s reactions around me: it depended onhow and if people looked at me. If everyone’s eyes were on me, I knew I wasbeing loud or doing something “wrong.”

Even now, I always like to stay in control of my sound. I have my phone off. Ioften don’t have it on vibrate. My TV has the sound off. This allows me tohave control, so I know it’s not making noise. I was dating a hearing guy. Hewould come stay at my house a lot and would turn everything on. I kepttelling him I wanted it off. He would reply, “Well I’m hearing.” But that wasstrange because it was my relationship with sound. I wanted to be in control,so I wanted everything off. I didn’t like the extra noise floating around mebecause I wouldn’t know what it was.

                                                                                                       

expressing myself and I never really enjoyed painting, so I had to find abalance. And that was a struggle. Finding your path as an artist is difficult.So I feel really lucky that I’ve now found my way.

You talked about sound etiquette in your TED2013 Fellows talk. You

were told as a child to not make noise. How can you have known how

not to make noise if you couldn’t hear it? That must have been very

confusing.

It’s based on my intuition. I could sense people’s reactions. For example, inschool, if I dragged my feet on the ground, people would say, “Shhhh.” Myfamily’s Korean, so they’re somewhat somber and still. I tend to be loud withmy expressions, and my family would tell me to tone it down. I knew I wasvery animated, but that was my language. People always say, “It’s likeyou’re performing,” and I respond, “That’s my language.” It’s funny. Butyeah, I just had to follow social cues.

All the customs and social norms, all the rules were in my face every day. I’dgo into a theater and I knew that I’d have to sit, be quiet and walk slowly. Itwas learned behavior from people’s reactions around me: it depended onhow and if people looked at me. If everyone’s eyes were on me, I knew I wasbeing loud or doing something “wrong.”

Even now, I always like to stay in control of my sound. I have my phone off. Ioften don’t have it on vibrate. My TV has the sound off. This allows me tohave control, so I know it’s not making noise. I was dating a hearing guy. Hewould come stay at my house a lot and would turn everything on. I kepttelling him I wanted it off. He would reply, “Well I’m hearing.” But that wasstrange because it was my relationship with sound. I wanted to be in control,so I wanted everything off. I didn’t like the extra noise floating around mebecause I wouldn’t know what it was.

“as forte as possible”, black ink on paper. Photo: Christine Sun Kim

So you are very aware of this thing called “sound,” even though you’ve

never experienced it…

Right.

…because it’s mirrored back by the people around you.

As a society, the majority of people hear. And I mirror them. I have to followwhat they’re doing. It was not like society gave me a clear, safe place to dowhatever I wanted. I had to learn how to integrate to their ways. And themore aware I become of the noises and the norms, the more I play aroundwith that in my artwork. The more experience I had trying to becomeaccustomed to the norms, the more I tried to use that as material for myartwork. And oddly, that made my voice clearer.

You translate sound into other forms as an investigation and

performance. Is this investigation primarily for yourself, or is it for

others? To what degree do you keep your audience in mind when you’re

playing?

It’s mostly about myself and my journey as an artist. Its about my

                                                                                                         

 

relationship to and my perspective of sound as it keeps changing. It’severlasting, it’s nonstop.

In my past work, I was doing a one-to-one translation like sound to vibration,working with sound to create painterly imprints. I don’t know if that reallytranslates. It’s very limited and deals with low frequencies only, and that’sjust one aspect of sound. That’s why I let go of the idea of translating it.Now I’m trying to develop my own information system and new theories ofwhat sound should or could be, using new forms.

Most people who write music have this idea of silence, but they can hearand they use that to define or shape silence, or vice versa. So how can Ilearn the idea of sound and silence from their perspective? I can’t relate tothat. So I’m starting over from scratch with everything. I’m redefining things.It’s not scientific evidence. People always ask me if I use sound waves in myart, but I’m not really interested in that.

Can you tell me about the various ways that you experience sound

without hearing it? I’m curious how this ties into your artwork and the

various ways you explore. For example, I’d love to hear a bit more about

Feedback Aftermath.

I played with feedback for hours one night and then went home. At home Ididn’t feel good and felt anxious. I couldn’t sleep well that night and I didn’twant to go back to the studio for one week. That was disconcerting. Andthen when I watched the video of myself — because I videotape myselfsometimes — I felt sort of stressed out and uneasy. Later I realized that ithad an impact on me, an extreme impact, like post-traumatic stress. Mosthearing people don’t experience that. You have warning signals. If your earshurt, you leave the room, you stop, you step away. I don’t have thosesignals, so I went past all warnings and experienced feedback to the fulldegree.

So how does the feedback enter your body, if not through sound?

There’s different ways sound has an impact on the body. Sound doesn’tenter only through the ears. It can go through the full body and also your

psyche. More and more, people are starting to develop sonic warfare to useas a tool, as a weapon.

I have a story about this: To get into my apartment you have to go throughone building, then walk through a courtyard and then enter a secondbuilding. Once a friend of mine, who is a real estate agent, came over andonce inside my apartment said, “Oh, it’s so quiet in here. It shouldn’t bewasted on you” — because New York is so noisy, so loud. But I realized Ineed that too. I used to live in a really crowded area, and I never felt fullyrested. But in my home now, I can pass out and sleep for hours; I feel reallyrested. Noise truly does have an impact on my body.

Untitled Speaker Drawings, Haverford College, PA, 2012. Photo: Lisa Boughter

You talk a lot in your work about the idea of sound as a currency. What

do you mean by this?

For hearing people, information is captured via the ear, through sound. But

   

                                                                                                       

psyche. More and more, people are starting to develop sonic warfare to useas a tool, as a weapon.

I have a story about this: To get into my apartment you have to go throughone building, then walk through a courtyard and then enter a secondbuilding. Once a friend of mine, who is a real estate agent, came over andonce inside my apartment said, “Oh, it’s so quiet in here. It shouldn’t bewasted on you” — because New York is so noisy, so loud. But I realized Ineed that too. I used to live in a really crowded area, and I never felt fullyrested. But in my home now, I can pass out and sleep for hours; I feel reallyrested. Noise truly does have an impact on my body.

Untitled Speaker Drawings, Haverford College, PA, 2012. Photo: Lisa Boughter

You talk a lot in your work about the idea of sound as a currency. What

do you mean by this?

For hearing people, information is captured via the ear, through sound. Butyou can look elsewhere and you are still getting information. With signlanguage, you have to be focused on what you’re seeing. Many things aredependent on sound, like Siri on the phone, voice commands. Sometimes Istruggle with that, getting people to look at me or write back and forth, butthey’re constantly looking away. Eye contact is lost, as is communication.

And the music world is huge. Music and sound are culturally dominant.Everyone lives in the music world and I’m constantly amazed with the waythey remember lyrics. For example: if they hear a few words, then theyinstantly know the song — that’s a very strong cultural aspect of the hearingworld. And even artists depend on that. Online videos are culturalconnections, but most of them aren’t captioned. Visual sentences and visuallanguage occupy a limited space in comparison to sound. So that’s why I’mtrying to play around with this idea of voice. In fact, I just did my first vinylrecord with a collaborator.

What’s on it?

It incorporates a lot of different concepts I play around with. My voice is onthe record, experimenting with sound. (I don’t use my voice often.) There aretwo records, one for the left side and one for the right side, and it comeswith a list of instructions on how to listen to both of them. You are to followthese rules. You put the records on two turntables, the left on your left, theright on your right, and play them simultaneously. The right record has beendesigned to play loops at normal volume, the left plays continuously at lowvolume.

This is a reflection of growing up with hearing aids. I’m completely deaf, but Ican hear a tiny bit on the right, with the help of aids. (I can’t actuallyrecognize or identify what the sound is; it’s just noise.) The right recordreflects this imbalance: it is a little bit louder, a little bit clearer. The left sideplays seamlessly, while on the right side the different loops actually stop, itgets stuck. To continue playing the record, you have to go over andphysically move the needle. It’ll play for a little longer and then you’ll have tomove it again. So it becomes laborious — it becomes more work for the rightside. This tangible interaction echoes my experience of hearing aids.

“Seeing Voice, The Seven-Tone Color Spectrum” in collaboration with Center forExperimental Lectures and Recess Activities, NYC, 2013. Photo: Eugene Gladun

What is deaf culture? Is there such a thing?

Oh, yeah. Disability has its own culture too. But deaf culture revolves aroundlanguage (technically, we’re a linguistic minority), and it’s a collectiveculture. People are very supportive of each other. It has its ways like anyother culture. For example, one behavior that’s culturally deaf is that, if yougrew up with a strong deaf identity, then when you’re sitting at a table andyou’re signing, if somebody joins the conversation, people don’t look up.They know you’re there, they continue talking, but they automatically moveover to allow somebody else in. There’s no interruption in the conversation.They have very simple rules and ways like that, and it adds up to culturalnorms.

So it’s kind of got an etiquette of its own.

For sure. It’s very physical and visual. Deaf people are also extremelystraightforward. I love that. When I went to Germany, talking to deafGermans was very easy. It was a different sign language, but the second youmeet each other you are instantly friends. Different languages have differentsign languages, but the expressions, ideas and concepts are similar. I thinkit’s easier for deaf people to communicate amongst their different languages

                                                                                                           

“Seeing Voice, The Seven-Tone Color Spectrum” in collaboration with Center forExperimental Lectures and Recess Activities, NYC, 2013. Photo: Eugene Gladun

What is deaf culture? Is there such a thing?

Oh, yeah. Disability has its own culture too. But deaf culture revolves aroundlanguage (technically, we’re a linguistic minority), and it’s a collectiveculture. People are very supportive of each other. It has its ways like anyother culture. For example, one behavior that’s culturally deaf is that, if yougrew up with a strong deaf identity, then when you’re sitting at a table andyou’re signing, if somebody joins the conversation, people don’t look up.They know you’re there, they continue talking, but they automatically moveover to allow somebody else in. There’s no interruption in the conversation.They have very simple rules and ways like that, and it adds up to culturalnorms.

So it’s kind of got an etiquette of its own.

For sure. It’s very physical and visual. Deaf people are also extremelystraightforward. I love that. When I went to Germany, talking to deafGermans was very easy. It was a different sign language, but the second youmeet each other you are instantly friends. Different languages have differentsign languages, but the expressions, ideas and concepts are similar. I thinkit’s easier for deaf people to communicate amongst their different languages

than hearing people.

You’ve been talking about the difference between American Sign

Language and English as though they’re different — for example, with the

translation of this interview (which was conducted live, with a translator).

So how are they different, and how do you navigate the difference when

you’re writing versus signing? Do you think differently?

It’s sort of like writing from Chinese to Spanish or Spanish to French.

That different?

Yeah. Really. Very different. That’s why I think ASL is an unique language.ASL is derived from French Sign Language mixed with home sign language.It’s influenced by those, but has its own formalized grammar. The tone isconveyed through body movement and facial expressions.

I like using the piano as a metaphor. Playing the piano is similar to ASL.When you put your pinky finger down that’s one note. Each finger has itsseparate notes, and all together you have 10 notes. So if you put them downat the same time, they become a chord. That’s like ASL. It’s not the same asEnglish. It’s spatial, not linear. If you think of a facial expression as one note,then body movement as another note, then speed as another note, handshape, placement, and so on — all these parts add up to convey themessage. When you do it all simultaneously, it becomes a chord.

What about bypassing language altogether? What did you think of Mary

Lou Jepsen’s talk about the brain-to-digital interface?

The idea is really creepy, but amazing. It’s a way of communicating withoutneeding language. I do, however, question the politics of it. The people whoare developing the program — are they the ones deciding what it would looklike? I’m a little fuzzy on the details of it, on what it would look like ifexecuted. Did you see Neil Harbisson’s talk about synesthesia?

Yes. He was amazing.

I was amazed, but it also became political because he picked the colors.

  There is line that is crossed. What if I wanted to decide for myself? The sameparallel exists with the Cochlear implant. It’s limited to only a few channelsof sound. The human ear has tons of channels, where the Cochlear implanthas a very limited number. So the doctors or manufacturers are the onesdeciding what hearing-impaired people will benefit from the most. I have aproblem with the politics. That’s my question about this technology. I thinkit’s a great idea to remove language and to have a different way ofcommunicating, but I’m curious how much control I would have.

What has the TED Fellowship experience been like for you so far?

Mindblowing, maddening, and exhilarating on every level. I wasn’t sure whatto expect, but during the conference, I felt I could completely be myself andthere was almost no attitude or ego; everyone was genuinely curious abouteveryone else. Being exposed to ideas outside of the arts was definitely aneye opener, as I often feel a bit too contained in the art and deafcommunities. The TED staff and attendees were extremely supportive of theFellows program, which made me refreshingly hopeful of my career as anartist. I’m definitely looking forward to potential collaborations with a numberof TED folks.