Plywood Installation #n is a continuing project with different exhibition organisers. The aesthetics they share comes from laser cutting plywood or plastic sheets. In this way we are able to build small and big interactive installation under low budgets. These installations are light-hearted, sending tiny sparks in our daily life.

Onomatopoeia Typewriter is an interactive installation for Typephoon, an exhibition about Chinese characters and typefaces. It was held by Tien Tien Circle Creatives in November 2012.

Onomatopoeia in Western languages can be easily related to the sound the word describes since it is formed phonetically (for example 'boom', 'bang', 'zip' and 'meow'). On the other hand Chinese characters are hieroglyphic; if just looking at an onomatopoeic word, it is less apparent what sound it represents. Some onomatopoeia are also used to describe the movement or quality of whom the sound comes from. (For example, 潺 represents the sound of water flowing, but it also means 'water flowing in a gentle way'.) The complexity leaves room for imagination. 

We are curious about what sounds these Chinese onomatopoeia actually describe, so we repurposed an old typewriter and mapped each key to a character and the sound it possibly describes. It can be seen as an instrument too!

2012
L293 W256 H160 (mm)
Plywood, Acrylic

「狀聲詞打字機」是應田田圈文創工作群所策劃的「瘋字型 - 文字藝術創作展」而做的互動裝置。西方的文字系統是以聲符拼音的方式造字，其狀聲字所描述的聲音，可以直接以字的發音來理解 (如 boom, bang, zip, meow)。中文字源於圖像，狀聲詞多找字音相近的字再加上和聲音來源相關的偏旁 (如「吱」「喳」都是嘴巴發出來的聲音)，或是與形容視覺上的效果同字 (如「潺」，亦指水流動的樣子)。只看字面的話不是很容易了解原指的聲音，同時也留下了很大的想像空間。很好奇這些狀聲字描述的聲音聽起來像什麼，因此藉由打字機的形式，將中文的狀聲字和其代表的聲音作連結。