The following text is the abstract of my MPhil thesis completed in Royal College of Art, London, in Sep 2002. You are welcome to access the copy in the RCA library.

Abstract of Mapping With Gaps

My interest in communication is generated by the experience of travelling between Taiwan and the UK. I attempt to think about the activity of communication in a geographical way and consider the difficulties in this activity as gaps that I need to travel through.

Using examples drawn from my practice, I firstly reflect on various difficulties originating from the process of performance. There is the implication of the use of my body for communication. I then analyse the gap between sound and vision to present the experience of blur arising from the perceptual inconsistency between hearing and seeing. My interest in process and experience and the connection to Existentialism cannot be ignored.

Unlike sonic artists who employ sound as a material to create an autonomous world, I use sound to develop a kind of ‘sonic sociology’. Perceiving the sound metaphorically and culturally, I intend to question the possibility of communication with sound as the sole medium.

When talking about the gap in language, my displacement as a bilingual stranger is reflected. With a language developed by my practice, I stress the opening and creativity of a language. In the gap in the theory, I clarify the notion of taking difficulty as an opening when the practical and the theoretical quests are conducted simultaneously. My concern about the relationship between theory and practice can also be seen in the juxtaposition of theorists’ and artists’ works throughout this thesis.

After the discussion of these gaps, I analyse various routes of travelling with a view to a structure. I then return to the practice to integrate gaps with the notion of mapping. A map is inferred to be boundless, multi-directional and multi-dimensional.

Note: For more of my writings, please visit About the Artist