Inspired by John Cage's performance 4'33, Yiyi Wei combines glass sphere's property of abstracting and highlighting ambient sound in the environment, with her father's daily ritual of tea ceremony to construct Sound Ceremony. The performance takes place on a bridge, connecting two sides of the canal in Providence, Rhode Island, extending to the ocean. Wei establishes an environment on the center of the bridge, which passerby can participate by sitting across from her. The sound captures by the handmade glass dome Wei wears transports through the tube into smaller blown glass spheres while she makes eye contact with the person across. The small sphere is then given to the participant as a gift as either a portable sound device or an evidence of the performance.
Sound ceremony
2017