On 20 Feb 2016, I sat down to have a conversation in public with Sze, my friend and cohort. I’d been wanting to do a talk about taking part in APT8 (8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art), but was tired with the usual slideshow-followed-by-Q&A format. Sze suggested doing the talk as an interview, which she’d experienced and been inspired by while studying in the UK. I loved it immediately.
We’d actually been conversing for months – since the middle of last year, when she interviewed me for her Masters thesis about politics, art and public space in Malaysia. Talking with Sze – in bars and cafes, on gchat or email or SMS – has been like getting into a trolley cart with my thoughts and ideas. Everything moves forward, inch by steady inch.
This time though, we were gonna talk in front of an audience.
It was experiment for the both of us. My relationship to speaking is not the same as the one I have with writing. My spoken voice feels to me the weakest muscle in my possession – I can hardly put any weight on it; I just don’t know what it will and won’t do. But as Durga Chew-Bose, one of my favorite writers today, says: ‘I do believe there is a power in conversation and dialogue. I think the transcribed voice for women is really important to women because the essay voice is edited and we’re self-editing from the day we’re little girls’.
AUDIO
Below is a full, unedited recording of the talk. We’ve ‘mapped’ the conversation with quotes and comments to help navigate the 1 hour 40mins of audio. It’s in two formats:
1) Sze visualized the talk using Timeline JS, a free, open source tool originally developed for journalists. Click through the timeline to see quotes, links, photos and comments that follow the flow of the conversation. To scroll through: point your cursor to the bottom of the timeline, click and drag left or right. The audio is embedded as a Soundcloud track in the second slide, click to play. Access the timeline separately here.
~
2) Click to play the Soundcloud track. Topics, quotes, comments and links are arranged according to timestamps in the Google spreadsheet below. Access the spreadsheet separately here.
~
ZINE
I made a zine for people to use as a notebook to scribble or doodle in during the talk. Here it is in PDF format, available for download.
~
LINKS
Artist Shika/Shieko Reto blogged about the talk HERE.
Liyana Dizzy and Syar S. Alia recorded an amazing conversation of their own about Spectacles HERE (or click on the image below). It’s full of insights and totally worth your time.
~
CREDITS
Many thanks to Ronnie Khoo for producing the audio recording.
Image of the talk from audience member Hing Lim’s Facebook post.
~
“Spectacles – Cermin Mata: (Goh) Sze (Ying) interviews Sharon (Chin) about taking part in APT8 (8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art)“ was a conversation on 20 Feb 2016 at Awe Gallery.