Half Sound, Half Philosophy

Rezensionen / Stimmen

In this book, WANG Jing offers the reader the unique opportunity to investigate sonic creativity within but mainly outside of academe in China ranging from sound art to experimental and electroacoustic music to DIY culture and electronic instrument building. The historical discussion covers much ground but is not restricted to a multi-strand survey. Key to her approach is the investigation of Chinese cultural and philosophical elements that permeate this substantial body of creative work demonstrating beyond any doubt that experimentalism with sound in China is hardly a simple reflection of developments from other, mainly western countries but is instead largely deeply rooted in Chinese traditions, some ancient, related to sound, to qi and much more. * Leigh Landy, Director, Institute for Sonic Creativity, De Montfort University, UK * If sound is qi, resonating, Chinese sound art animated by qi lives in the resonances that arise in the mutating, overlapping atmospheres of state power plays and works of artistic resistance. In this stunning book, Jing Wang audits pieces that mobilize clock hearts, crowd shouts, cybernetic dissonance, and strategic silence to jolt us into an active attention to how violence and defiance are made and born in the ambient sounds of everyday life. * Stefan Helmreich, Elting E. Morison Professor of Anthropology, MIT, USA * Half Sound, Half Philosophy is the first major study of Chinese sound art and its affinity to ancient Qi-philosophy, an organic, holistic and enchanted worldview that stands in marked contrast to the commercialism and individualization of post-Mao China. Erudite and being attuned to the subtle play of resonances and the subliminal in the acoustics of Qi, Wang's book is destined to become a classic of sound art scholarship and sound studies more broadly. * Veit Erlmann, Professor of Ethnomusicology and Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin, USA, and editor of Sound Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal * Wang's timely publication is a must read for anyone interested in a transnational perspective on sound. * Samson Young, artist and composer * Half Sound, Half Philosophy contributes a uniquely ambitious and essential entry into the emerging literature on sound in East Asia. Wang's rich scholarly analysis extends the core tenets of qi as acoustical thought into a contemporary history of electronic music and sound artists, revealing the deep roots of sonic philosophy in Chinese conceptual and creative practices. * David Novak, author of Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation *