Summary of TedTalk Video (The enchanting music in a Sign Language by Christine Sun Kim)

        Christine Sun Kim was born in deaf. However it doesn’t mean she cannot play the music. Interestingly, she is an American sound artist. Here the summary of her explanation of the sound in sign language.

                In history of American Sign Language, French language was brought to America during the early 1800s, and time went by mixed with local signs, it envolved into the language we know today as ASL. So it has history of about 200 years.

 Kim has draw of ‘p’ tree as her current definition of silence which demonstrate of many level of sound until the lowest sound ever, and probably we’ll never reach complete silence.  It was a very obscured sound. She was born deaf, and  was taught to believe that sound was not part of her life. She believe it to be true. But now, she realize that sound is on her mind every day. As a deaf person living in a world of sound, it’s as if she was living in a foreign country, blindly following its rules, customs, behaviors and norms without ever questioning them.

          So how Kim understand sound? Kim watch how people behave and respond to sound. The people are like her loudspeakers, and amplify sound. She  learn and mirror that behavior. At the same time, Kim have learned that she create sound, and have seen how people respond to her. All of these things she term “sound etiquette”. Kim thinks about some etiquette more than average person does.  She is a yper-vigiliant around sound and always waiting in eager nervous anticipation around sound, about what’s to come next. 

In deaf culture, movement is equivalent to sound. In the year 2008, Kim had the opportunity to travel Berlin and Germany for artist residency. However, she had been working as a painter. She visited different museums and gallery spaces, and she noticed there was no visual art there where at that time, sound was trending. It struck her because everything was audiotory. Now sound has come into her art territory. Kim actually know sound very well. Sound doesn’t have to be something just experienced through the ears. It could be felt actually, or experience as a visual or even as an idea. 

So Kim decided to reclaim ownership of sound and put it into her art practice. Then, everything that she had been taught regarding sound and decided to do away with un learn. She started creating a new body of work. Interestingly, the art community give her support and attetion when she presented her work to them.

There’s a massive culture around spoken language. And just because she don’t use her literal voice to communicate, in society eyes, it’s as if  she don’t have a voice at all. So Kim need to work with individuals who can support her as an equal and become her voice.  And that way, She is  able to maintain relevancy in society today. So at school, at work and insitutions, Kim work with many different ASL intrepreters. And their voice become her  voice and identity. They help her to be heard. And their voices hold value and currency.  So, she didn’t continue this practice, she feels that she could just fade off into oblivion and not maintain any form of social currency. So with sound as her  new art medium, she dwelved into the world of music.