Poplar Yuddha

“Living in fear, surrounded by sound we can’t hear, humming, vibrating, not secure”

Selected by Instrument Inventors Initiative in The Hague and Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong, Lazarus Chan was invited to create “Poplar Yuddha” as a commission work and artist residence.

The sound travels from 1000 to 0.5 Hz, from the mysterious number station to the nuclear test document. Infrasound, the frequency around 0-20, is known as the sound of fear in cinema. Nowadays, it weaponizes as a “Sonic Weapon”. Also, it’s the means to monitor nuclear tests, earthquake and volcano activity, protecting humankind from disasters. Lazarus defines infrasound as the frequency containing human struggle and fear. We fear the apocalypse, fear our technologies, struggle with our actions.

Infrasound is recorded from the WWII sites, Shaftesbury Avenue in HK and Atlantikwall in The Hague. Unhearable data files distribute into sonic data. Through special treatment and data recalculations, the artist manipulates infrasound data into hearable sonic as a performable digital instrument. In addition, installations translate the infrasound from speaker to acoustic structures, producing sounds likewise bomber. Not only humming but strong vibration with crackling sounds, outputting sounds similar to fire up an engine. That’s how the artist translated the unhearable vibration into the rhythmic pattern of bass crackling. Thus, create a 15 mins length performance filled with struggle, pressures, sadness and reflections.

Technical assistant: Howie Chan
Assistant & Video on-set: Simon Cheung
Photographer & Video: Manny Yip
Venue Support: School of Creative Media
Special Thanks: Rain Wong - SCM, Bryan Chung - BUAVA, Rachel Cheung -  HKAS, Chris Cheung - HKAS, Steve Hui (aka Nerve) - Twenty Alpha

About Sonic Transmission

Sonic Transmission is an artist exchange program, with the goal of exposing Hong Kong artists to the international sound art community and vice versa. In collaboration with organizations that share our commitment to further the discourse of sound, we feature our city’s artists in performances or featured exhibitions outside of Hong Kong.

Chief Curator (2020 – 2022): Karen Yu
Project Manager (Administration): Cheung Kwan Him