2016
For her reimagining, organized by Avant.org, Kim led a group on a soundwalk through the same neighborhood. However, as a Deaf artist, she approached the concept of "listening" through non-auditory means.
Performance elements
- Silence and interpretation: The walk itself was silent. Instead of an audio guide, Kim used a notepad and an interpreter to communicate with the group.
- Alternative listening: She invited participants to think about "listening" in a multi-sensory way, moving beyond a single sense. She communicated her own experiences of sound through other senses and memories.
- Visual cues: Throughout the walk, she stamped each participant's hand with the word "LISTEN," with the parentheses she uses in her visual work to signify a silent gesture or thought.
- Narrative and memory: At specific stops, she shared personal anecdotes in American Sign Language (ASL) that evoked "sounds" from her past, which her interpreter voiced for the audience. These included memories of a bike accident, a graduate school recommendation, and experiencing vibrations from a wall in a gallery.
- Abstract compositions: Her use of ASL, personal stories, and written text created "abstract compositions" that replaced Neuhaus's auditory ones. She also used an iPad to display text that challenged the notion of hearing, posing questions like, "What is the sound of anticipation?" or "the sound of uncertainty?".
The significance of Kim's interpretation
By re-staging Neuhaus's soundwalk, Kim created a work that serves as both a homage and a critique.
- Deaf perspective: The work centers a Deaf perspective, challenging the hearing-centric assumptions inherent in traditional sound art and expanding its potential.
- Redefining listening: It redefines listening as a practice that extends beyond the auditory. Kim shows that sound can be "seen or felt," and experienced through memory, vibration, or imagination.
- Activist art: Kim's work often challenges the "politics of sound" and the notion that oral language is a universal social currency. By reinterpreting a classic sound art piece from a Deaf perspective, she subverts the "hearing etiquette" of the art world.