Mengting Zhuo is an artist from Guangzhou, China who creates situations in the form of performances, participatory installations and concerts. The work is often characterised by minimalism, subtlety and intimacy, involving audience participation to explore themes of connection, communication, chance and distance. In terms of sound, she explores the politics of listening through the use of non-instrumental, unusual noises, readymade objects and physical activity, involving the creation, reception and manipulation of signals, as well as the liminal points at which sound intersects with space. Her arrangements have recently been exhibited at MAO, Turin, Italy, Frieze, London and Cafe OTO, London. As a performer and director, she meets audiences in theatres, galleries and a variety of other spaces including parks, beaches, karaoke clubs, flats and the internet. She studied performance making at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where she also held a position. Her work has been exhibited in the UK, China, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

I listened to her collaboration with Li Song, ‘Two Rooms’, which they both played live in London. In the first part, I could hear the friction of stools moving around and the sound of them walking around with the chairs. In the following part, I could listen to some harsh sounds from the speakers and a looping noise. After that it ends with the tapping of a metronome. This piece made me feel that the rubbing of the stools gave me a feeling of inner turmoil because for me personally, the sound made me impatient, but when it was followed by the sound of the speakers and other sounds joining in, I felt my mood become much calmer.

During the talk, Mengting played a game for us; when she clapped her hands, three volunteers needed to sit down in order according to the approximate time of 15 of this clap. In the first round, the clap was almost 1 second in my feeling, so I counted almost 15 seconds in my mind and realized that the first volunteer didn’t sit down, and then almost 5 seconds later, he sat down. I think this is very interesting because everyone has a different concept of how long applause lasts. Based on this, I think people’s concept of time may also be related to their age, and I feel that time passes more quickly as they get older. When I was a child, the world was full of curiosity, where are fresh, the outside world is full of all kinds of new stimuli so that every day is very long; with the growth of age, the outside world has lacked too much of a sense of freshness, more just a monotonous repetition of stimuli, rich experience so that the nerves for the life of the information processed extremely quickly, and gradually entered the “adaptive” state, weakened not only the concept of time, but also the concept of time, and the concept of time. Slowly, the nerves process the information in life very quickly and gradually enter a state of “adaptation”, which not only weakens the perception of the passage of time but also retains an incomplete memory of the information, which makes it appear that the day has passed without notice. Often, when you look back, a year or ten years have flown by. As a result, the older you get, the faster you feel time is passing.