黄闪是高雄人。2023年在燥眠夜出版磁带《A cappella》。出版时朱文博和他做了一个短短的采访。
朱文博：我是通过刘芳一知道的你。听说你好像并没有类似于音乐（包括实验音乐）的背景，可能也和艺术场景有一些距离，是这样吗？总之，你愿意和大家介绍一下你自己吗？
黄闪：大学时就有和朋友在家做一些小东西，纯粹好玩，而因为高雄实验音乐同好不多，大家透过彼此介绍会自然聚集在一起交流。以前常在芳一家，还有子宫、豆皮这几个空间混，有参与过几次私下的jam session，也有过小空间演出，比较多的是这种因缘际会的合作与玩乐。
朱文博：《一百天的诉辩》真是一个很厉害的项目啊，我最初听说的时候真是惊呆了。你每天录制30分钟的人声素材，连续录了100天，最后得到50盘磁带，用50台小型录音机在展览空间里播放，参观的人可以自行操作这些录音机。想问你是怎样想到要做这个项目的？你以前有做过这样耗时漫长的“西西弗斯式”的项目吗？能不能为我们复原一下你的想法思路？
黄闪：是某次在幻厅三楼的展演间整理东西时想到的。独自一人瞎忙的时候常常自言自语或是发出一些没意义的声音，而幻厅特别的回音效果给了我这个灵感，可以把自己的声音放在里面播放。
整个录制过程对我来说就是在做音乐，每一个制造并录下的声音都是有用的声音。自给自足一个Sample库，用各种方式组合起来听听看。所以接到这个发行的邀约我很开心，因为我又可以把他们再重新组合一次。
朱文博：录制的过程是怎样的？你用的什么设备，是直接录到磁带上吗？连续录100天，即便每天只是30分钟，应该也会是很煎熬的事情吧？不知道在这100天的过程里，你对于这个项目是否有了什么想法上的改变。
黄闪：录制方式有直接录到磁带上的裸声，也有为了录更细微的声音或是调变使用麦克风收音，看那天想录的声音决定，都不是基于特别谨慎的考量。虽然100天听起来很长，但都是一天可以快乐轻松地做完的量。做到一半时有因为贪玩调变太多效果，听感开始朝着我不喜欢的方向去，因此推翻掉部分录音，最后把对声音的处理缩限在EQ调整与变调。
朱文博：可以讲讲展览的过程。磁带里的B面录音是你在展览正式开始之前，自己在空间里录制的现场。后来有观众的现场是怎样的？展览现场和你的预期是否一样？
黄闪：因为不想造成打扰，同时也不太好意思，开展后除了延伸出的两场演出外我很少待在展场内，但观众被我大致分为打开零星几台好奇听听看与五十台全放大胃王两类，也有人因为不会操作录音机这项时代产物搞不清楚拍完照就走了。因为没有特别预期，所以都蛮惊喜的。
朱文博：在磁带内页里我看到了这50台录音机。它们是你为这个项目特别购买的吗？想来应该是一笔很大的开销吧！为期一个月后展览结束后，这些录音机和磁带你怎样处置？
黄闪：是特别购买的，因为想要操作直接尺寸也方便的录音机，最后挑到原厂已经绝版的款式，最后是从各通路一间间询问搜刮而来。整体花费对我来说偏高，但因为是慢慢进行边做边买，所以还在可负担范围。展览结束后因为一台也没卖掉现在全堆在我家仓库。
An interview between Zhu Wenbo and Huang Shan, translated by John Wilton
Zhu Wenbo: Fangyi Liu introduced me to your work. I gather that you don’t have a background in music (including experimental music), nor do you have much of a history with art. Anyway, would you like to tell everyone a little about yourself?
Huang Shan: While I was attending university, some friends and I would do little things at home, just messing around. At that time, the experimental music community in Kaohsiung was really small, naturally everybody got to know each other through mutual introductions. We would hang out at Fangyi’s house, or places like Zigong and Doupi where we had little jam sessions. There were also a few performances in small venues. Most of the time, we just happened to run into each other and then for fun we would play music together.
Zhu Wenbo: 100 Shits is a pretty crazy project — I was actually kind of stunned when I first heard about it. Every day for a hundred days you recorded 30 minutes of voice material, out of which you made 50 unique tape recordings. Then for the exhibition you loaded them into 50 cassette players which were distributed in a room. Audience members were then free to interact with them as they pleased.
How did you come up with this project? Have you done such a long, Sisyphean undertaking before? Could you walk us through what your thought process was?
Huang Shan: When I’m busy working away at something by myself, I often say things to myself, or make random meaningless sounds. Once when I was tidying up for an exhibition in the performance space at Hallucination, the strong reverberation in there gave me the idea to have my voice transmitted throughout the room.
As for the recording process, as far as I’m concerned, I was just making music. All the sounds that I made and recorded were sounds that I could use to make a sample pack of myself, which I then experimented with, combining different ‘samples’ together to see what they sounded like. I was really happy to be invited to do this release, because it was another chance to mix them into something different.
Zhu Wenbo: What was your recording process like? What equipment did you use, did you record directly to tape? Even if each time it was only for 30 minutes, wasn’t it a bit of an ordeal to record non-stop for a hundred days? I wonder whether, over the course of those hundred days, your thoughts about the project changed at all?
Huang Shan: For raw vocals I recorded directly into the cassette recorder, and for more detailed sounds and effects I went through a microphone. It depended on what I wanted to record that day, which wasn’t based on any particularly deep considerations. Even though a hundred days sounds like a long time, each day the recording was just a small amount of time that was fun and easy to get done.
About halfway through the project, I was getting a bit greedy playing with too many effects pedals and it started to sound like the music was going somewhere I didn’t want it to. I discarded some of those recordings and from then on I limited myself to just using EQ and pitch modulation.
Zhu Wenbo: Let’s talk about the exhibition. The B-side of A cappella is a recording of yourself operating the cassette players that you did in Hallucination before the opening of the exhibition. Later, when the audience was taking part, what was it like? How did the exhibition compare with your expectations?
Huang Shan: Apart from when I was there to see two other performances, after the opening I was rarely inside the exhibition because I didn’t want to intrude, and also because I felt a bit awkward. Anyway, I would basically divide the audience into two: there were those who out of curiosity turned on the odd cassette player here and there, and then a few ‘big eaters’ who turned on all 50 all at once. There were also some people who didn’t know how to operate a tape recorder, it’s technology from a bygone era after all, so they just took a few photos and then left. I didn’t have any specific expectations, so I was pleasantly surprised by the way things unfolded.
Zhu Wenbo: On the inside leaf of the case there is a photo of the 50 cassette players. Did you buy them specifically for this project? Seems like it would have cost a fair bit! After the month-long exhibition ended, what did you do with the tapes and the cassette players?
Huang Shan: I bought them specially for the project, because I wanted recorders that were conveniently sized and easy to use. I found an out-of-production model, and eventually through all kinds of channels I managed to scrape together enough of them. For me, the overall expense was pretty high, but it was manageable because I bought them gradually over the duration of the project. Since the exhibition ended, I haven’t sold a single one, so they’re all being stored at home.