User:)biyibiyibiyi(/grad project

Repeater | fù dú jī | 复读机 | Archive

The archive surrounds the narrative of the repeater, a device used in China since the 90s, predominantly for learning English. It was invented by a telecommunications engineer in his forties to learn English, since folks at his age learned Russian in school. The device quickly became phenomenal, and radically changed how language learning is perceived and conducted.

This device commenced and accompanied the my English learning career. It is a tool of disembodiment. Students were tortured and frustrated from repeating from tape recordings out of everyday context; at the same time the device was a tool for advancement and mobility during the country's then radically transformative years.

Several methods and schools of thought inform my project - the method of the anarchive, the field of media archaeology, and the study of sound. Today, the repeater, along with the pedagogy the device proposed, has gradually exited from the landscape of language learning. It is an object of media archaeological value. Talking to my friends from childhood, I collected interviews that will work as contextual narratives, on how the device took place in everyday living.

Collection of spoken interviews

w Childhood friend Wang Zhen

Intentionally, I want to approach the archive from a departure of intimacy. Wang Zhen was a figure that orients this departure: she was the daughter of my parents' colleague, we are the same age and the same school year. The narrative/retrospection is situated in the compound we lived in for two years, from 8 to 10 years old. At age 9, English courses become mandatory in school. I bought Wang Zhen's first repeater with her, in the local shopping mall.

The conversation revealed how Wang Zhen's forgetful nature. She did not remember what the repeater was, mistaking it as a radio device. As the memories become more familiar to her, they became more vivid. We talked about the circulation of New Concept English, a English as second language text book widely popular in China since its publication in the 60s.

The conversation also revealed the correlation between foreign language learning and class. Because our parents were teachers, we were instructed to learn during our spare time, while many other households did not emphasize foreign language as a way of advancement, academically and socially and culturally.

I want to use Wang Zhen's as an orienting figure for the archive. The repeater was a collective experience of a generation, and I want to depart from a shared experience that's intimate to me, and unravel the rich contexts that illustrate the repeater's context. From the compound we lived in, the schools we went to, how we were told to buy the device per teacher's instruction... These details weave together a narrative that probe to the common experiences the repeater triggered in people's daily lives.