Relative Perception N°2

Six metal tubes of unequal length hang in space like silent vertical lines. What wakes them are the solenoid valves above, opening at timed intervals: as a valve opens, water begins its slow descent, clinging to the wall of the tube — and what seemed a static, minimalist installation at once reveals its nature as an instrument.

Inside each tube runs an electric heating rod. As water travels down the heated metal, it flows, evaporates, and sounds all at once, until it has vaporized entirely. Sound is thus no longer fixed to a single point: it glides down the length of the tube with the water's descent — possessing a beginning, a path, and an end; a sounding line moving through space. The length of each tube determines the distance of a sound's life; differences in temperature determine the speed of its vanishing. Six tubes, six lengths, six degrees of heat, opening and closing in staggered succession, overlap in space into a polyphony performed by matter itself.

If N°1 writes duration through inclination, N°2 measures space through length. The premise of Relative Perception here unfolds vertically: perception never derives from a single absolute value, but takes shape through comparison — in the subtle differences of length, temperature, and timing among the six tubes. As sound replaces sight as the medium for probing space, the ear takes over the work of the eye — reading, along each descending line of sound, the distance, heat, and time that vision cannot provide.

The valves open and close in cycles, turning the exhibition into a slow respiration: each opening is the birth of a sound, each vaporization its farewell. Through repetition, limescale and rust accumulate layer by layer on the tubes — visual sediment left by sounds already gone, a record transcribed by matter itself. What Relative Perception N°2 ultimately suspends in space is not merely six metal tubes, but six paths of sound in constant genesis and constant vanishing — between flow and vaporization, a subtle sonic auscultation of space, performed again and again.

With the support of the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan.

六支長短不一的金屬圓管懸吊於空間，如幾道靜默的垂直線。喚醒它們的是上方定時開啟的電磁閥：閥門一啟，水便依附著管壁緩緩下行——乍看靜止的極簡裝置，隨即顯露它作為樂器的本性。

每支圓管內部埋設電加熱棒。水沿著高溫的金屬下行，一面流動，一面蒸發，一面發聲，直到完全汽化為止。聲音因此不再固著於單一位置，而是隨水的行進沿著管身滑降——它有起點、路徑與終點，是一條在空間中移動的聲線。管的長度決定一段聲音生命的距離，溫度的差異決定它消逝的速度；六支圓管、六種長度與熱度，錯落啟閉，在空間中交疊成一部由物質自行演奏的複音。

若說〈相對感度N°1〉以傾角書寫時值，〈N°2〉便以長度丈量空間。相對感度的命題在此垂直展開：感知從不來自單一的絕對值，而是在六支管之間細微的長短、溫差與先後中，於比較裡成形。當聲音取代視線成為探測空間的媒介，耳朵便接手了眼睛的工作——沿著一條條下行的聲線，讀取距離、熱度與時間，那些視覺無法給出的訊息。

閥門週期性地開闔，使展覽成為一段緩慢的呼吸：每一次開啟是一段聲音的誕生，每一次汽化是它的告別。反覆之間，水垢與鏽蝕在管身層層積累——已然消逝的聲音所留下的視覺沉積，一份由物質自行謄寫的紀錄。〈相對感度 N°2〉最終懸掛於空間中的，不只是六支金屬圓管，而是六道不斷生成、又不斷消逝的聲音路徑——在流動與汽化之間，對空間展開一次次細微的聲音觸診。

本作品獲臺灣國家文化藝術基金會贊助。