Seeing Sound: An Interview with Christine Sun Kim

That Christine Sun Kim has been deaf since birth is relevant to the California-born, New York-based artist’s practice. It is from this perceived disability that her art so audaciously springs, offering material traces of sound that challenge the way people communicate and congregate. AAP conducted an email interview with Kim to mark her participation in the exhibition “Soundings: A Contemporary Score” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which opens in August and will feature her “Scores and Transcripts” series.

How do you feel about being described as a “deaf” artist? 

My deafness has clearly contributed to and influenced my work, but so have many other factors such as my upbringing, family, communication and interests. Ideally, there would be no adjectives preceding the identity “artist.” After all, “deafness” and “disability” are words that carry a certain stigma. But on the other hand, these terms can be helpful and acknowledge the elephant in the room—giving the audience a chance to get past this superficial layer of my identity. So maybe I shouldn’t be averse to such words, and just let things be—I believe my work is strong enough to stand on its own. 

In this Nowness video, you say that you are trying to “reclaim sound as your property.” You also talked about hearing as a “currency.” Can you tell me about how you got started and how your works actively claim ownership of sound?

When I started thinking about sound as an artist, I paid attention to the small decisions I make and noticed that I do a lot of mirroring. For instance, when people are shocked or surprised, they cover their mouths after making a certain sound as a response. It wouldn’t make sense if I did the same, yet I do, perhaps out of politeness. When I was accepted to Bard’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts for a MFA in Music/Sound, it was my first time being on my own with non-signers for an extended period of time, and it was then that I was able to see my situation most clearly. I saw past the visual translation of sound and began to further consider social currency and linguistic authority. My work is all about the politics of sound. I owe much of this to one of my sign language interpreters who is also a linguist. We had numerous conversations about semiotics and linguistics, especially spoken languages. The terms “ownership,” “property,” and “currency” are used both figuratively and literally in my work. 

So what was your work like before you were able to “see past the visual translation of sound”? And how has it evolved?

In my early work, I used low frequencies to cause vibro-imprints with ink or paint-dipped brushes and screws. After a while, I panicked at the idea of working with only one aspect of sound and came to understand that I didn’t need to approach it so literally. I started questioning my voice box, which is probably the sound I am most comfortable with because it comes from my body. That brought up a new set of ideas. I started looking into different formats of vocalizing—with piano wires and transducers, writing essays, giving voiceless talks, and so on. It’s a bit ironic that I found my “voice” as an artist through sound.

Can you talk about your work Half Face Time Signature?

Sure, for this piece I used a max/msp patch, iPad, piano wires and transducers. I selected helpers and communicated by using an iPad (with a Big Words app), ordering them to set up the piano wires. I then taped transducer sandwiches (two transducers facing each other with the wire in-between) and used the patch to live record my multiple non-speech voices. Finally, I played the recordings out into multiple wires where people were able to feel and hear my voice. The period of sounding out is usually much shorter than the mantling and dismantling periods; it does take a lot of time and energy for me to set up my own platform anywhere—like in a classroom, meeting room, or a cafe—and make my voice known.

In your “Speaker Drawing” series, you placed paint-dipped brushes, nuts and bolts on top of subwoofers covered in paper. You then projected your voice to make the subwoofers vibrate, which caused the items to move around the paper, creating imprints. Is the work of art the process of creating the painting or the painting itself?

The process of selecting colors, materials and even sound is the work. The imprint is the final product, but the process is more revealing than the imprints.

So do you see yourself as a performer?

It feels like I’m always performing because of the way I must communicate with non-signers. These interactions are a huge part of my practice.

You are ethnically Korean. How do you think this has impacted your work or how you think about sound, language, or communication?

I am so glad you asked because it does have an impact on my practice. In Korean culture one is raised to be a collective member of society, to always be conscious and considerate of others. Even to this day, I’m trying to figure out how to distinguish my individual and collective responsibilities. I often feel that I should be as quiet (visually and verbally) as possible when I’m around my family (or all Koreans, for that matter). So when I started using my voice box in my art, I was struggling to let go of not only my deaf identity, but also my Korean identity. It helps that I’m highly adaptive and have the ability to navigate through different communities without causing conflict, misunderstanding or tension. One of my cousins recently read about how I mirror people in terms of sound. He pointed out that it is probably because I have lived my whole life as if I were in a foreign country.