Wood, photopaper, glass, paper steel, steel lock, a headphone and a mp3 player
25(W) x 25(L) x 13(H) cm
Headphones function as private theatres — portable sanctuaries that allow one to escape into a personal world of sound and memory. In Sing the Songs to Vic Beretton and Wang Mingjun, Tang Kwok-hin creates an intimate, locked wooden box containing an MP3 player and headphones. Inside are two songs performed and recorded by the artist himself: “Reality” (1980) from the French film La Boum, and “The Sound of Silence” (1967), featured in the Hong Kong film Unbeatable.
Both songs share a cinematic motif: in each film, the female protagonist (Vic Beretton in La Boum and Wang Mingjun in Unbeatable) becomes immersed in the music through headphones, momentarily withdrawn from the surrounding world. By covering these tracks and placing them in this sealed, personal object, Tang creates a vessel of shared emotional resonance — a quiet dedication to these characters and the universal experience of finding solace or escape in music.
The work explores themes of solitude, nostalgia, cinematic memory, and emotional transportation. Though small in scale, it carries a sense of intimacy and longing. Listeners who put on the headphones are invited to enter the same immersive, inward space once occupied by the film characters — and by the artist himself.
