SoundBlog ♫ Read me a poem, Yi Sang! [Yi Sang à Paris, ii]

Read me a poem, Yi Sang!
나에게 시를 읽어주세요, 이상!
(Yi Sang à Paris [ii])

june 25, 2010.

[ Installation for the exhibition Yi Sang à Paris: Est-ce que la ligne a assassiné le cercle ?, La Générale, 14 avenue Parmentier, Paris XI. June 23rd - July 4th, daily from 15h. See the complete program at yisang.fr. ]

In a small transparent suitcase there is an audio cassette, which contains a copy of 'Read me a poem, Yi Sang!', a one hour sound composition based on my reading of French and English translations of Yi Sang's poems in may/june 2010.

The visitors of the Yi Sang à Paris show, as well as the viewers of this soundblog entry, are invited to make a picture, a drawing, or to write some words and then send what they made by email to readmeapoemyisang[at]gmail[dot]com.

At the end of the Yi Sang project, in september/october 2010, if there have been N contributions, each contributor will receive by email 3600/N seconds of the sound piece as an mp3 file. Thus being - literally - cut up, the original sound file disappears.

"Read me a poem, Yi Sang!" will continue to exist only as the random distribution of its N parts. For each of the parts, though, there is a photo, a drawing or a small text that was sent in by email.

Together these N contributions constitute an image of "Read me a poem, Yi Sang!", like a translation. This translation will live on as a web page, at yisang.soundblog.net

투명 가방 속의 카세트에는 <<나에게 시를 읽어 주세요, 이상!>>의 복사본이 들어있습니다. 이것은 내가 2010년 5월, 6월에 이상시의 영어본과 불어본을 읽은 것을 토대로 하여 한 시간 분량으로 만든 사운드입니다. ‘파리로 간 이상: 직선은 원을 살해하였는가?’ 전시 기간 중 촬영한 사진(혹은 이미지, 그림,,,) 또는 메모를 readmeapoemyisang@gmail.com 이메일로 보내주세요. 보내주신 자료는 http://yisang.soundblog.net 사이트에 게재됩니다. 이상 프로젝트 전시가 끝나고 보내주신 자료가 N개라면, 2010년 9월과 10월에 mp3형식으로 된 사운드 조각 3600/N초를 이메일로 받으실 수 있습니다. 그렇게 잘려진 원본 파일은 사라집니다. <<나에게 시를 읽어 주세요, 이상!>>은 그것의 N부분의 무작위적인 배분으로서만 계속 존재하게 될 것입니다.

Sur la cassette dans la valise transparente il y a une copie de Read me a poem, Yi Sang!, une composition sonore basée sur ma lecture en traduction Francaise et Anglaise de poèmes de Yi Sang, en mai/juin 2010. Envoyez par email une photo (ou image, dessin …) faite ou quelques mots écrits pendant l’expo ‘Yi Sang à Paris – Est-ce que la ligne a assassiné le cercle?’ à l’adresse readmeapoemyisang@gmail.com Les contributions seront ajoutées au site web http://yisang.soundblog.net A la fin du projet Yi Sang, en Septembre/Octobre 2010, s’il y a eu N contributions, vous recevrez par email 3600/N seconds de la pièce sonore en format mp3. Ainsi découpé, le fichier sonore original disparaît. Read me a poem, Yi Sang! continuera d’exister seulement comme la distribution aléatoire de ses N parties.

Read me a poem, Yi Sang! was inspired by Yi Sang's words and Yi Sang's images, that struck me by both their inaccessibility and their transparence. Which is why you will not be able to hear what is on the cassette. It is also why, at La Générale, Read me a poem, Yi Sang! at times may be even hard to see...

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Many of the works by the Korean and French artists that together make up Yi Sang à Paris: Est-ce que la ligne a assassiné le cercle ? in and around La Générale (an industrial building in the center of Paris contemporary to Yi Sang (1910-1937) that recently was transformed into a laboratory for culture) relate specifically to the scientific/geometrical imatry that forms an integral part of much of Yi Sang's texts. Yi Sang wrote them in Japanese and in Korean. They are interspersed with French, English, German words (either in latin characters or in phonetic transcription), with numbers and with symbols, and often reflect in a seemingly formal way on notions of time and space, reflections though that, taken literally, are mostly trivial or absurd.

But the trivial and the absurd are like transparency and inaccessibility are like matter and anti-matter. Whenever and wherever they collide, it opens up an infinitely vast space in which anything can happen.

That's Yi Sang's playground.

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