MOST PEOPLE REGARD the relentless noise of Hong Kong as a nuisance. Not Cedric Maridet. For him, the constant clattering of city life is a source of, and medium for, his art - sounds we hear but never listen or pay any attention to.
In I/O Flow, an audio installation at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre last year, he combined natural and recorded humming produced by an air-conditioning system to manipulate people's perception of the exhibition space.
In his digital video Huangpu, the Frenchman explores the relationship between the eye and the ear based on the concept of synaesthesia, a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are coupled. The piece won him a prize for excellence at the Hong Kong Biennale 2005.
Hongkongers aren't particularly sensitive to sounds, the 34-year-old says. 'The culture here is led by the visual. For instance, in film and video, people tend to work on the images first and leave sound to be dealt with later. Sound and image end up not being well integrated.'
Yet Maridet says sounds can sometimes help us understand our environment far better than visuals.
'If we listen by removing the image of the sound source, the sound becomes acousmatic [meaning that it can't be attributed to a source],' he says. 'We're then beginning to listen to the mass, the energy, the texture or the grain of the sound.'