This project aims to create an audio artwork through sound recording and re-composition, focusing on the gradually fading Chinese Nuo opera. The piece begins with the resonance of a gong, employing sound-processing techniques to gradually attenuate and blur its rich sound until it becomes almost inaudible. This serves as a metaphor for the endangered state of ancient cultures in contemporary society, seeking to raise awareness about their preservation.

Nuo opera, known as the living fossil of Chinese theatre, originated from ancient Chinese rituals aimed at exorcising evil spirits, warding off epidemics, and invoking blessings. It is not merely a performance but a form of shamanistic culture that facilitates dialogue between humans and deities. Its deductive form was highly popular in ancient times. The sounds in Nuo opera include both instruments and vocals: the instruments feature sharp copper gong sounds and heavy drumbeats, with rhythms that are not complex but combine to form a primal cadence. The vocalisations of Nuo opera include shamans' whispers and roars, as well as chanting spiritual incantations. It is not melodious but carries a strong local dialect, emanating a raw, visceral power from the depths of the body.

To concretise the process of Nuo opera's disappearance in the artwork, my research strategy focuses on sound iteration. Drawing inspiration from Alvin Lucier's I Am Sitting in a Room, I apply acoustic spatial processing to the gong sounds of Nuo opera. The recorded gong sounds are repeatedly played and re-recorded in a space, undergoing iterative processing. This explores how spatial resonance gradually consumes the clarity of the sound, blurring and transforming it into chaotic ambient noise, metaphorically representing the gradual endangerment of Nuo opera in its historical transmission.