mafmadmaf's work
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        幾乎每一年的年卅晚團年飯，都在作者的奶奶家裡進行，她的所有兒女和孫輩都會團聚在飯桌前，尤其 2006 年爺爺去世之後他們都非常珍視這每年僅一次的團聚。在全球性疫情的影響下，自 2020 年起至本作品創作的當下（2022 年 12 月），已分別移民澳洲和美洲多年的四叔（奶奶最小的兒子）和姑媽（唯一的女兒）都一直沒有回來過年。這些年在廚房備餐的基本上是奶奶的長子（作者的父親）和次子（二叔）。兩位大男人讓廚房幾乎沒有轉身的空間，而狹小的廚房裡使用多年的電熱水壺工作時的噪聲很大，每當水燒開的時候發出的聲音，幾乎覆蓋掉廚房中所有其他的聲響，這足以讓人失神。
2021 年 8 月作者前往四川丹巴嘉絨藏區駐留和實地錄音。有一天在墨爾多神山中，沿著山谷中瀑布旁的崖壁野路，艱難跋涉、沿瀑而上。那瀑布的聲響在縱深千米的山谷中迴盪，其聲音的體量同樣大得讓人恍惚。這讓我聯想起奶奶家廚房裡那顆無論音色和音量都能與此瀑布比肩的老舊電熱水壺。
「兩個迥異的空間，兩種相似的響聲，連成一條時空通道，恍惚間，彷彿我們再一次團聚。」
在這個多聲道裝置中，作為聲景主體的實地聲音記錄於 2021 年 2 月的中國農歷新年除夕，作者將錄音機放置於他奶奶家狹窄的廚房內、面對在操刀晚宴的兩個男人，待烹調接觸、他將錄音機繼而轉移到餐桌旁繼續紀錄這一夜的年夜飯的過程。原始的聲音紀錄是線性的，始於廚房，歷經備菜、烹調等過程，直到客廳內的家庭聚餐，其中人物的粵語對話、咳嗽，烹飪過程中的聲響，物件工作時的噪聲，全都交織在一起，紀錄了一個不尋常的時期、尋常的廣州人家的年夜飯。作者試圖透過聲音為媒介，穿過他在默爾多山中失神時的記憶通道，在美術館漆黑的廊道中重構為嶄新的連續性瞬間。
在廣州美術學院大學城美術館內，作者搭建起一條長約 11 米的、近乎漆黑的人行隧道，天花板有極微弱的鎢絲燈，在通道的兩側牆體埋藏 10 枚全頻段音響（Genelec 8010A），聲音作品以 10 聲道環繞聲的制式呈現。進入漆黑的通道後，觀眾需要經過 1 分鐘左右的適應，然後便會發現這條筆直的通道。在一步一步向著通道的另一頭走動的同時，他們會聽見這段廚房和聚餐錄音構成的聲景與之伴隨前行。逐漸接近通道盡頭的位置，耳邊的瀑布聲和電熱水壺的沸騰聲將融合為一。
一起約好過年
缺席人物 多於往年
只能齊集 仍在的臉
趕快地拍下照片
你要記 記住這歡聚 而不是太短
—— 黃偉文詞作《小團圓》
        Almost every Lunar New Year's Eve reunion dinner was held at the artist's grandmother's home, where all her children and grandchildren gathered around the table. Since the passing of the grandfather in 2006, this annual gathering became even more cherished. Yet, under the impact of the global pandemic, from 2020 up until the time of this work's creation (December 2022), the grandmother's youngest son, who had emigrated to Australia, and her only daughter, who had long lived in the Americas, had not returned for the New Year. In recent years, the preparation of the family banquet largely fell to the grandmother's eldest (my father) and second sons. Two men squeezed into their mother's narrow kitchen, their movements barely finding space, while the old electric kettle — a fixture of decades — dominated the room. Its piercing boil would drown out all other sounds in the kitchen, so loud that it could plunge one into a daze.
In August 2021, during a residency in Danba, Sichuan's Gyarong Tibetan region, the artist hiked along a precarious cliffside path beside a waterfall on Mount Mo'erdou. The thunderous sound of the falls reverberated across the kilometer-deep valley, its sheer volume equally disorienting. It recalled, with uncanny clarity, the very same sonic presence of the kettle in his grandmother's kitchen.
"Two disparate spaces, two resonant sounds, linking into a temporal portal — in a trance, it was as if we were reunited once again."
The multichannel installation draws upon these soundscapes. On Lunar New Year's Eve of 2021, the artist placed a recorder in his grandmother's cramped kitchen, facing the two men preparing the feast, then later moved it to the dining table to capture the family meal. The raw recording unfolds linearly: beginning in the kitchen, through chopping, cooking, coughing, Cantonese conversations, the clatter of utensils, and the kettle's roar, until it reaches the living room banquet. It is a document of an extraordinary period through the ordinary sounds of a Cantonese household.
Refracted through memory, and tethered to the waterfall of Mo'erdou, these recordings were reconstructed in the dark corridors of Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. An 11-meter-long pitch-black passage was built, lit only by faint tungsten bulbs overhead. Ten speakers, hidden within the side walls, transmitted the piece in immersive surround sound. After a minute of adjusting to the darkness, visitors gradually discerned the linear passage. Step by step, as they advanced, the sound of kitchen and family merged with waterfall and boiling kettle, coalescing into one.
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