UB first participates in the Beijing Design Week

Josep Cerdà and Marc Ruiz share their passion for sculpture and their musical talent to create the pieces of musical sculpture <i>Jin Si Nan</i>, which are unique in the world.
Josep Cerdà and Marc Ruiz share their passion for sculpture and their musical talent to create the pieces of musical sculpture Jin Si Nan, which are unique in the world.
Culture
(10/10/2014)

On 3 October, the University of Barcelona (UB) first participated in the Beijing Design Week (BJDW) with the conference “Presentation of Jin Si Nan, the sound expression of 3.000 years”. The BJDW is the most important festival of design, architecture, urbanism and contemporary creation in Asia. This year, Barcelona was the guest city and the UB was represented by a delegation headed by the vice-rector for Institutional Relations and Culture, Lourdes Cirlot, and composed by two representatives of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University: Josep Cerdà, artist and head of the Department of Sculpture, and Martí Ruiz, PhD students at the former Department.

Josep Cerdà and Marc Ruiz share their passion for sculpture and their musical talent to create the pieces of musical sculpture <i>Jin Si Nan</i>, which are unique in the world.
Josep Cerdà and Marc Ruiz share their passion for sculpture and their musical talent to create the pieces of musical sculpture Jin Si Nan, which are unique in the world.
Culture
10/10/2014

On 3 October, the University of Barcelona (UB) first participated in the Beijing Design Week (BJDW) with the conference “Presentation of Jin Si Nan, the sound expression of 3.000 years”. The BJDW is the most important festival of design, architecture, urbanism and contemporary creation in Asia. This year, Barcelona was the guest city and the UB was represented by a delegation headed by the vice-rector for Institutional Relations and Culture, Lourdes Cirlot, and composed by two representatives of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University: Josep Cerdà, artist and head of the Department of Sculpture, and Martí Ruiz, PhD students at the former Department.

On the conference, Professor Josep Cerdà presented the pieces of musical sculpture Jin Si Nan which are the result of the collaboration between the Faculty of Fine Arts of UB and the Fucheng Ji Si Nan Art & Culture Promotion Company. These unique pieces are name like the material used to make them: a three-thousand-year-old wood from China traditionally used to build pieces of furniture for the elites that can pay for such a scarce and exquisite material. “It is a set of four pieces —four engraved planks— that hang from a structure. In fact, it seems like Basque txalaparta, but planks hang like if they were wood bells”, explains Josep Cerdà.

After developing an intense research activity, Cerdà developed, together with the PhD student Martí Ruiz, an accurate technique to produce melodic sounds with wood. They turned these valuable pieces into innovative musical instruments. “We tried all possibilities to beat, scrape and rub with sticks and hammers made of different materials; we were looking for the different sounds that each part produce in order to give worth to this sound richness”, explains Ruiz. “The use of contact microphones —he adds—, which are like electronic stethoscopes, enabled us to listen and manipulate the internal vibrations of each material”. Consequently, the diverse tones, more melodic, and the different colours of sound are articulated in small compositions: some free and improvised, and others remember oriental rhythmical traditions that are structured and minimalist, like the Indonesian gamelian.

Within the conference, Ruiz offered two concerts with the musical sculpture pieces Jin Si Nan, in front of an audience who were able to listen to the sound of these new pieces that mix sculpture and music for the first time. The conference also included the speeches pronounced by the Chinese art collectors Zhou Yongjun and Tian Chuanjie, as well as the architects Lluís Bravo and Gaoli Li.

The emblematic building 79 tank, located in the district 751 —one of the neighbourhoods that gathers Beijingʼs art movements—, hosted the conference that the UB organised in order to promote and foster art and culture exchange between China and Barcelona.