Sound, Embodiment and Displacement: Listening to Borders in the Art of Samson Young

Abstract

Borders today are commonly perceived as sites of tension and conflict. Whether conceptualized as territorial borders that purport to physically separate nations or social, political and cultural borders that ideologically split individuals, the idea of a border as impenetrable and divisive boundary obscures what can pass through. Sound, as a force capable of moving through objects and individuals, demonstrates that borders are in fact permeable, especially to that which is invisible to the eye. This paper seeks to offer an alternative conceptualization of the border through a sound-based methodology, drawing on the works of sound studies scholars like Brandon LaBelle (Sonic Agency, 2019) and writing on modernity and the self such as Steven Connor’s “The Modern Auditory I” (1997). By examining three works by the Hong Kong-based multimedia artist Samson Young — Liquid Borders (2012-2014), For Whom the Bell Tolls (2015), and Nocturne (2015) — which combine sound and visual imagery, I suggest that Young’s use of sound and image in these works allows a unique experience of embodied displacement that both grounds the audience in their own embodied subjectivity while simultaneously displacing them in order to imagine the experiences of others. Ultimately, through an analysis of Young’s works focusing on national borders, I hope to demonstrate how sound can not only disrupt common conceptualizations of borders but also present an alternative framework for understanding and being in the world that, when paired with vision, can offer an embodied method of capturing the experience of subjectivity as being both a part of and apart from the world.