Artist’s Statement
My art work of this topic is a sound piece
Please click the link to hear the piece:
society of control –home control
These are rules on me at home by my mother. She is the one whom I respect most in my family.
And I translate it in english according to her meaning.
This sound piece requires an earphone.
As a chinese saying :左耳入右耳出(In english: words enter from the left ear and immediately come out from the right ear), this sound piece require you to use an earphone to listen
because i made the rule by my mother from the left ear, and the feeling of me from the right ear.
I make my mother’s rule coming from to your left ear and my feeling coming to your right ear.
You could only listen from one side if you want to hear the whole piece clearly.
If you listen it from both concurrently or from a microphone, you would listen a mixture of of voice from me and from my mother.
My mother’s rules are short in duration. But my feelings linger.
I think in chinese family, there is another saying:家家有本難念的經(literally translation: every family has a difficult classics)meaning every family has their rule, problem,difficulty…etc.
In Gilles Deleuze’s “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, nowadays, everybody’s living is a passing from one enclosure to another enclosure (home, schools…etc), which are subjected to “control”.
The closed environments are given way to different forms of power. In control society, one never completely leaves a particular enclosure or the different enclosures collaborate to create more control.
In my society, I am within 2 major enclosure : home – school
I make this sound piece of a case from me.(home: my mother; school: hector–joking: )
My mother is the one who control me at home, and her control would not only carry out at home only, e.g. she always call me if I do not come back home on time or do not show up at dinner time.
It is due to the caring I always interpret them as. But, when I go to school, which I have another role( a student) to take, I feel somewhat restricted. It is a traditional thinking that mother have to monitor a daughter to be a good girl before marry. It is a psychological molds of the enclosure to maintain order–reasonable behavior of a daughter.
I could comply many of the “basic rules”, as I think I am not necessary to break the rule to make my mother angry. Whether she is angry or not is really a concern for me. Because I want to have harmony with her.
Because of the practice of being a good girl at home, I would be good in the society I go into.
I am always praised by my friends as a good behaviour girl as I never say foul language or doing anything “bad” e.g.like going out late, play all the time, chat all the time, eat breakfast every morning…etc”. While my image in school is like that , when i do part-time job, my colleagues also share the same feeling with my friends. A Good girl seems like a responsibility of me. If I do anything wrong, they would think the world will end very soon.
I would laugh at their feeling towards me. I feel it is good for them to think me like that.
However, Who am I? I would ask.
I am good-behaviour at your heart, But not that is not an exact me in my heart.I am a girl who always look for opportunity to do the things I like. From Michel de Certeau” Practice of Everyday life”, I realize I am quite good at tactics.
So far, I could strike a balance of the image of me from my mother and my will.
I could skip her rules when she is not present.
In the society, because of the will of the power( government, rich, school…etc) everyone would feel guilty if they violate the “rule” they enforce. It is a control against the public will. Maybe it is for the sake of a certain order. But, sometimes, the “rule” would not be feasible enough to include different opinions. This turns out to be conflict of ideas. It will not be stable if people do not listen the rule.
In this piece, it could futher develop to the voice of various powers in HK and my voice and others voice on a larger issue. And you should better listen one by one or otherwise, the voices of different people will be a mess which would reflect by the reality.
