The first part of Kung Chi Shing’s haunting video City Inside a Broken Sky, Deep Night alternates black-and-white imagery of a construction site amid debris and scaffolding, the colonial-era building of the Oil Street Art Space, and a young boy. Familiar construction noises are interspersed with occasional wailing, an eerie, melancholic sound conveying despair. “Dark in every sense,” in the artist’s own words, the video is the first of four in a series called Soundscape, a meditation on the implications of construction, the use of public space and the city itself.

“Construction involves destruction,” he says. “When you destroy something, you’re erasing something that came before it, and Hong Kong is famous for erasing. Every few months an old building is gone, an old space is destroyed to build a new one.”

Soundscape was created to mark Oil Street Art Space’s expansion. With two galleries housed in a complex of historical significance, its expansion will include an indoor gallery, and an outdoor venue that will be open to the public. The space has served over the years as a yacht club during the colonial era, a monuments and antiques storage facility, and a studio space for young artists.

Using this history as a point of departure to understand the site and city today, Ivy Lin, curator of Oil Street Art Space, says the aim of the expansion is to reinvigorate audience engagement with public space by exploring ideas of sustainability, community and sharing public resources. “We would like to engage people to think about what we will be – and how they can be involved in the future space. This is why we invited Kung Chi Shing; he’s very good at creating an intimate response to the environment.”  

Originally Soundscape was supposed to be a live performance conducted at sunset, in both the construction site and the courtyard in front of Oi!, with members of the audience watching from the footbridge above, resulting in a much more immersive experience. Kung had to reimagine a pandemic-friendly version, resulting in the four-part video installation.

Known for his live experimental music performed during “street concerts”, Kung traversed new creative ground with Soundscape while holding firm the core concept of his practice – examining how environments, especially public spaces, are altered by music and art.

“I don’t think music should invade a place” says the artist. “It should integrate with the environment to generate something different.” He achieves this effect by extracting everyday sounds we experience in our surroundings and combining them with his experimental creations.

Kung’s street concerts began in 2009, the same time as his interest in public space was piqued, after the controversy surrounding the public area in front of Times Square. Attempted privatisation of public space and its designated use became a focal point for the artist. He was later approached by Hong Kong Arts Centre and used the space outside it to make a statement that public space shouldn’t be used for commercial purposes. He additionally organised casual street concerts in older areas of Hong Kong, such as outside the Blue House in Wan Chai, using “primitive equipment”. In staging these intimate shows, his infusion of music into their neighbourhoods brought people together in a way that broke the monotony of their daily lives.   

“It was meant to stimulate your sense beyond what you see every day,” Kung recalls. “People today are so robotic; their life is a constant routine. It’s all calculated, with a small variation of ups and downs. It’s that order that I find frustrating. I don’t want to shock people for the sake of shocking them; I want to slap them in the face and wake them up a little. Especially in Hong Kong where we’re so conservative.”

His experimental sound reached new heights in his collaborations with Peter Suart, who formed a group called The Box. It was during one of their shows that Lin first encountered Kung’s music, and recognised his practice as an artistic one.

“It’s almost making sound rather than music. From that point of view it’s close to artistic creation: musicians responding to their environment and daily issues the same way that a lot of contemporary artists do.”

Ultimately Kung’s response to his environment, specifically in City Inside a Broken Sky, is unexpected for audiences, which he likens to creating a “sense of displacement”. 

“Displacement is a very powerful expression. When you put things in a place where it’s not supposed to occur, that can be very powerful. It inspires you to see it in a different light.”

The impact of the hybrid soundtrack along with the dark imagery is a discomfiting one, but also one that resonates with the current climate of uncertainty, mirroring viewers’ changed relationships with and associations of public space.

龔志成（阿龔）影片系列的第一章節《City Inside a Broken Sky, Deep Night》令人難以忘懷。在棚架和雜物中的殖民時代建築油街實現建築地盤和小男孩的黑白影像互相交替，偶然有怪異和憂鬱的哀號聲在熟悉的建築噪音中穿插，表達深沉絕望，如阿龔所說，是「不折不扣的黑暗」。該影片是《一景．二聲》系列四個章節中的第一章，是對建築、公共空間和城市意義的反思。

他說：「建築存在破壞。摧毀物件就會抹走過去，香港就是以抹走聞名，每隔幾個月就有一座舊建築物消失，舊空間被摧毀，來建造新的建築物。」

《一景．二聲》是為了紀錄油街實現的擴展工程而創作。油街實現的歷史建築群設有兩個畫廊，工程會增建一個室內畫廊和一個向公眾開放的室外場地。油街實現曾先後用作遊艇會、文物倉庫及年輕藝術家的工作室。

油街實現館長連美嬌以這段歷史作為出發點，理解今時今日的油街實現和香港。她認為擴展工程的目的是透過探索可持續性、社區和共享公共資源，重新激發觀眾參與公共空間。她說：「我們希望人們去想像油街實現會變成怎樣的空間，而他們又可以如何投入未來的空間，於是我們就請來龔志成，因為他非常擅長對環境作出親密的回應。」

《一景．二聲》本應是計劃於日落時在油街實現的建築地盤和前面的庭院進行現場表演，觀眾可以從上面的行人天橋觀賞表演，令他們有身臨其境的體驗。但受疫情影響，阿龔最後把表演轉為短片的形式，分成幾個章節發佈。

阿龔以在「街頭音樂系列」表演現場實驗音樂而聞名。在《一景．二聲》中，他作出了新的突破，同時繼續堅持自己的核心理念：研究環境（尤其是公共空間）如何隨音樂和藝術而變化。

阿龔說：「我認為音樂不應該入侵某個地方。」他續道：「它應該與環境融合產生不同的結果。」他透過把日常聽到周圍的聲音，結合實驗創作來實現這種效果。

阿龔的街頭音樂系列始於2009年，那不久前有關時代廣場地面公共空間的爭議引發了他對公共空間的興趣。自此之後，私有化公共空間及其指定用途成為了阿龔藝術實踐的重點。後來，香港藝術中心邀請他籌辦活動，他利用了中心外面的空地舉辦音樂會，宣揚公共空間不應用作商業用途的訊息。他還利用一些「原始設備」在灣仔藍屋外等香港舊區舉辦街頭休閒音樂會。他親密的演出為社區注入音樂，打破日常生活的單調，將人們連結起來。

阿龔回憶道：「表演的目的是要超越人日常接觸事物的感覺，刺激你的感官。」他續說：「現今人們的生活非常公式化，每日如常，彷彿所有事情都經過計算，沒有起伏。這種規律令我覺得很無奈，我不想以驚人為出發點，但我想用一巴掌令他們醒來，在如此保守的香港尤甚。」

與彼得小話成立了名為「盒子」的樂隊後，他的實驗音樂再創新高。連美嬌在他們一場表演中首次接觸到阿龔的音樂，認定他的表演為藝術實踐。

連美嬌說：「那是創造聲音多於是音樂。從這個角度看，是接近藝術創作，是音樂家如同當代藝術家一樣回應環境和日常的議題。」

最終阿龔對環境的回應出乎觀眾所料，尤其他把《迷走都市》比作「違和感」。

他說：「違和是一種非常有力的表達，當你將事物放置在不應該出現的地方時，它會激發你以不同的眼光看待。」

混合音軌和黑白色影像令人感到不安，但也與目前不明朗的氣氛產生了共鳴，反映觀眾與公共空間之間的聯繫和變化的關係。