Instrumental Possibility

Having shared interests in music, sound, movement, laws of vibration, light and shadow, Instrumental Possibility brings together the works of Singapore musician, educator and composer Rosemainy Buang and Thai visual artist Arnont Nongyao. 

Banten by Rosemainy culminates around a wall installation of gamelan instruments, visual projection of movements and shadow play, and accompanied by sounds and voices. These elements are brought together in a form of a gift, to restore balance in one’s rasa (intuition). The work draws inspiration from the Balinese concept of Kanda Empat (Four Siblings): a philosophy that rests on acknowledging one’s origins and harmonising one’s inner self. 

The Shadow(y) Needs No Bones by Arnont is centred around five participatory instruments devised with LDR (light-dependent resistor) sensors. Brightly coloured and reminiscent of the inner mechanisms of an amplifier, sounds generated by the instruments are further activated through the shadows of passers-by and are undergirded by Arnont’s long-standing interest in the idea of public instruments and creating sounds collaboratively.

Despite their differences in form, aesthetics and sound, the works by the two artists are similar in their experimental forms, explorations with instruments, and explorations of sounds and sound-making as entrenched in gestures, rituals, cosmologies and systems of knowledge rooted in Southeast Asia.