Broadcast used to show 60 radios and 60 audio clips corresponding to each of them. In ShanghART Taopu, however, 52 sets of them are now on display. The broadcast radios of this kind were popularly used back in 1960s and 1970s. Collected by the artist around Zhejiang Province, these readymades remain almost untouched, bearing historical memory themselves after the long passage of time. An eletronical timer is utilised to control all the radios, which are set to voice at the same time for 20 seconds every 50 seconds. The sounds displayed respectively by these radios are recorded by the artist and most of them are from private conversation or meetings. One finds the work a noisy unity when juxtaposed, yet whose content is clearly heard if s/he takes a close step to any of them.
Broadcast made its debut in SHAO Yi's solo exhibition Exposure at Shanghai BizArt Space in July 2008. This very artpiece is conceptually similar to two other works displayed in Exposure, where the artist achieved configurationally the combination of everyday objects from last century, as well as the juxtaposition of audio and visual. Standing still as the most mediocre and average segments of real life, topics, emotions and relations disclosed by these recordings can be seen as an alternative interpretation of the word "Exposure" in context of Chinese language.
Detail pictures:
