Is There Really a Place on Radio for Experimentation?

[Clip from Musically Homeless: group of people in the background chatting in Chinese while they eat something, making loud cracking noises…]

Hi, this is Yan Jun from Beijing. I'm a musician. I'm a performer and composer in a way. Actually, I started from writing. I was a music critic, actually. But in the last 20-some years, 25 years, I focused on music, focused on improvised music, experimental, and trying to do something, I don't know, out of the box, maybe. Including the box with title, with label, experimental, or improvisation.

This is my piece with the title Musically Homeless. This is a radio piece. This is a kind of a performance or kind of activities of four people. Yeah, actually the first time we did this at my home, myself, two friends and my wife, we did this together and at real time we transmited this, all the sound, to a net radio of Tsonami Festival in Chile.

[Group voices chatting in Chinese]

It's kind of people meeting and sharing some food. Of course, when you eat with friends you talk, so that's sound of chatting and eating and also about music. Because there's a topic which is we share the food from our different home cities, hometowns, and of course we talk about the different lifestyles, different weather, everything, in different regions in China. And of course, we talk about music, we show some music from our background.

So basically, if you listen to this, really, you listen to something normally you don’t listen to. This is everyday life, and with food we expect the taste, the smell, the shape, the weight. Radio in this piece means something you cut, some part of this existence. But if one thing we could call this existence, there's a question. If I cut half of that, the rest of that, is it still existence or is half of existence?

[Digital voice, translation software for mobile phone: «A fermented drink made from ground beans… ». Group chatting continue.]

So this is the radio, a knife. And a knife to bring question, and the question is actually behind of our perspectives and our sense.

[Chinese traditional music and footsteps in the background. Chatting and eating noises continue…]

Radio to me is, okay, back to many years ago, back to the 80s while I was a kid, there was no internet, there were less connections, less connections to your friends, to information. I think radio is kind of a, I don't know, it's kind of a miracle of nature. You can just, yeah, like me, just hold this small box and hide in the bed, because that's the time you should, you're supposed to sleep. But of course, I don't want to sleep. I just want to listen to some comedy, some – we call that xiangsheng. Yeah, I want to listen to that. I want to have fun. You know, with this power of, power of wireless, power of something that connect me to something we call the station, or we call that connect to some artist, to some people talk to me. And I know some of my friends also are there. Also, also being connected. Even I don't exactly know that.

[Radio broadcasting noises…]

I mentioned nature, I mean it's a kind of a dependence on the nature of our planet. You don't need very special devices to transmit and receive the signal. it's not like today's internet. I think that, compared to radio, Internet is really a kind of a dictatorship.

[Chinese traditional music in the background. Chatting and eating noises continue…]

So this piece, Musically Homeless... I mean, my background is… I´ve never studied music. I barely studied anything except my school classes. And also all these traditions and all the art and culture were not really around me. I think many people in in this country have the same background. Of course, you see this is a great culture, it's a great tradition, but where is the connection, where is a strong connection? I don't see that, I don't feel that. I think, of course, in the deepest root we are connected to tradition, but actually no practical connection. This is one thing and also homeless, I mean, today we are homeless, our home is this homelessness. This is a situation for, I mean, most people in this world.

[Static noise, hissing sound, pouring and stirring an iced drink sounds in the background…]

I mentioned two artists: Peter Fischli and David Weiss. This title, actually, Musically Homeless is a quotation from them. So, this work I think not only from this title, not only the thing I want to express, which is homeless and musical, but also, I want to pay my respect to these two artists, to their unclear way of expressing their dreamy film works.

[Digital voice, translation software for mobile phone: «Fried dough twist». Group chatting continue…]

The performance was quite simple. You don't have to be a performer, you just come, bring some food, which should be from your hometown, from your region. In Beijing, most of my friends are from another place, not originally from Beijing. That's very easy, you get food from your friends or your family and bring it to my place and we just simply talk about this composition, and we start to eat and talk about the food. But I hope if people listen carefully, would find some pattern. Of course, it is a composition, there are some patterns. And under these patterns, under these songs, under this music, there are concepts.

These concepts are the structure, the base of the work. So, I think (about) what are concepts, what is conceptual art. It’s something you find, or you set from and into your understanding of the piece of work and understanding of the world. You set up this, then you are free. You are free to do anything. I mean, it's like a vessel, it's like a cup. Once you build this cup, you can pour wine or water or milk, whatever, into the cup.

[Drink pouring sound…]

That's free, but you have to build a good cup. So, once you follow all these patterns, all these structures, instructions, you can be a performer. You can be an artist or whatever. Of course, before and after, you could be anyone. This is the power of the concepts. The question to me is: can I transmit any sound of my everyday life to a radio? The answer is, of course, yes and no. «Yes» means any material is possible. «No» means you always need a little and powerful transformation. You need to transform them to materials, to art, to radio.

[Background: food cracking noises, electronic device alert sound, traditional music and footsteps…]

I think I don't know the future of listening, really. I mean what is radio to me, is I mentioned, I have mentioned this is nature, so I hope, I don't know, I hope in the future, sooner or later, we could understand nature through listening. It's not difficult but you have to turn the understanding.

[Chatting, loud traditional music, eating noises…]