LEE HIU YI JOYCE
Composer, Sound Designer & Artist in HK
Performers: Lau Pak Ho Albert (percussion) and Lee Hiu Yi Joyce (live electronics)
Performed in CISL Hong Kong Baptist University Composers’ Concert Series Showcased on 30 May 2022 June 2022
Capriccio: Sink is an open form piece composed with graphic notations, designed by the composer, Lee Hiu Yi Joyce. The score is divided into 6 blocks, in which each blocks represents different decades of Hong Kong, from 1970 era to 2020 era.
There are lots of data showing the dramatical changes on populations statistic in Hong Kong, including Population growth rate, Fertility rate and Population. Each data represents different social situation, showing that the birth rate in Hong Kong are gradually lesser and depressing, while more and more outsiders are coming inside due to the great opportunities here. Hong Kong is a very small place, but it is also a squeezed city, but it is full of a lot of high-quality resources allocated for life, attracting many people from different places to flock to Hong Kong to make a living for decades.
Therefore, the problem of overpopulation in Hong Kong is gradually coming to the fore, and the sense of oppression in the city is becoming more and more obvious, and many people feel oppressed by it. These phenomena remind me of the scientific term “behavioural sinking” coined by ethologist John B. Calhoun. In experiments, test subjects like rats gradually become erratic in overcrowded environments, while their “country” is Utopia, with unlimited resources such as water, food, and protection from predators as well as disease and weather.
At the end of the experiment, the rats were induced to have disordered survival behaviour, and their willingness to bear children was reduced. Refusal to raise offspring on a large scale is one of the characteristics of behavioural depression. It is not difficult for me to imagine whether the current Hong Kong society will end up like the rats: Hong Kong also has high-quality resources, and everyone does not have to worry about food and clothing, but both the population data and current interviews reflect that most young people in Hong Kong do not care about life and hope not to have descendants. In the foreseeable future, the fate of destiny is really unpredictable. However, the fate of Hong Kong can be seen in my imagination.
“Sink 沉淪” is a philosophical concept developed from ‘behavioural sink’. Sinking in the great generations makes people feel helpless and depressed. In this piece, high frequencies are used to resemble the scream from souls, while the sound from the percussion represents the populations changes.