笔迹 script/ notes looks at 17 years worth of hand-copied and hand-annotated scores from Shu’s collection. Through observing and re-presenting these markings, she considers the way language and customs are developed in social groups and how it borrows and evolves from existing and adjacent communities.
The book is a physical documentation of the Chinese Orchestra community as told by the artist’s collection of physical materials, memories, and her personal relationship with the art form. The book is deliberately printed in 2 colours, black and silver ink, mimicking the lack of colour of the average music scores, and silver, emphasizing the graphite annotation by the pencil on music scores. Binded by an O-ring bind, this intended touch also replicates the binding of generic music scores. The annotations that you can find within this book are presented in subtle ways that are self explanatory of what each of them symbolizes. The reader is allowed to self interpret the different graphical manifestations of the annotations before reaching the glossary that is situated at the end of the book.
Designed by Mingli Seet as part of the project hosted by THEBOOKSHOW, A Different Reading
Hong Shu-ying engages in process-led projects to clarify and negotiate how vocabularies and customs act as a shorthand for communities that she belongs to. She is fascinated by the creative potential of familiarity, both as a narrative tool and source of enquiry. Informed by her lived experiences and growing up in Singapore, she is a keen observer of the traces people leave on and for each other.
