Concept

Hong Kong's rich history, with its interesting tales of  marauding pirates, can trace back to a century ago, when the city was still a fishing village. We went to Tai O, one of the few remaining fishing villages, to observe the villagers who still depend on the piscatorial for their livelihood. The fishnet they used attracted our attention. Its texture, toughness, white colour, and the function of trapping brought us inspirations. Interestingly, another type of green nets with similar textures were found in urban construction sites, used for preventing falling objects. Nets versus nets, we decided to bring them together in our performance, the collision of history and modernity.

With various artistic personalities, conversation between eastern and western cultures, and lots of confusion, we felt the process was like brewing a cup of tea. It was scorching, but also positive. We named the performance Oolong, the tea with the most complex baking process. Therefore, the fishnet was given another metaphor, a teabag. We invited our audience to have a cup of tea, to enjoy a spatial and temporal infusion experience.

On Collaboration

Finding a way to make a work that all four individual artists could support and agree on, that would not just be an addition of the individual visions of the artists, but would be a multiplication of the individual ideas, that would form a new work, a genuine group work, and a work that projects in different cultural environments, was our challenge. It brought us to individual limits, gave a deep insight into communication, and showed differences but also common ground of our cultures and disciplines.

We had a clear division of the work. Leo was in charge of the dramaturg, while Yannik was responsible for the music composition. I took charge of the hardwares and the projection design. Contact Mikes were put onto the net, sensing the vibration of the net, for generating sounds. For the projection, the texture of the net made simple graphics much more intricate. I did the programming in Processing. Syphon helped connecting Processing to Resolume for live VJ. And careful mapping was done to fit the installed net.

We did our first prototype in a small storage room. The fishnet was played as a musical instrument. Audience comfortably lied down to enjoy the projection, as well as to creating sounds by simply reaching the net above them.