What do I do?
My Background
My background is music-oriented. There used be three main musical activities:
- Music production
- Film music composition and production
- Audiovisual digital music improvisation
Relating to the third activity, I finished my PhD in Music last year (2017) at Canterbury Christ Church University. The title of the PhD was ‘The Development of an Audio-Visual Language for Digital Music Performance’. More details can be found here.
Then What Now?
Now I am shifting towards research-based art practice. I would still do music-related projects, but I would like to spend more time on research-based projects this year.
I have two primary fields of interest. One is the culinary culture and human history, and the other is the sexual and marital culture and human history.
Culinary Culture and Human History
I have done one performance project regarding this field in June 2018. It was titled as:
Act: Study
Subject: History
Topic: _
The performance was about the act of learning history of wine and cod, especially focusing around the trading history between Porto and England through the products. I wanted to extract the performative elements and the poetic sentiment from the act of learning.
Now I am working on the next small project relating to the field. The project is commissioned by Musicity, and I will produce a 3–5 minute sound piece for Leadenhall Market in London. Leadenhall Market used to be a fresh food market in the 14th century, and today it is commercial market street full of business people, symbolising capitalism. Under the Musicity project, composers choose a location from the concerning area, and responds to it with their new music.
Musicity seeks to encourage people to explore the city musically, architecturally and experientially by comissioning musicians to compose original tracks in response to a building, site or piece of the city that inspires them. (Musicity)
I am researching the history of market, and the history of drink and food in England for this project, through literature research and fieldwork research. My personal ambition for it is to make something interesting, without making it music.
Sexual and Marital Culture and Human History
Relating to this field, I have a longer-term project, where I am approaching the small community of senior polyamorous people in London. I regularly meet them at their gatherings. I prefer not to firmly decide what my output would be, but vaguely thinking about the installation with multi-channel videos, multi-channel audio, a table, chairs, and the occasional participation of interviewees in the room.
I am interested in how socially accepted norms have become ‘norms’, and how other have not. This would be my core motivation behind this project.
My Current Position
From June 2018, I have started my new position as a visiting artist and postdoctoral researcher Goldsmiths, University of London, and at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, funded by Pola Art Foundation.
At Goldsmiths, my host is Professor Atau Tanaka, and I have joined his research group, the Embodied AudioVisual Interaction Research Group (EAVI), Department of Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London. At LCC, my host is Professor David Toop, and I have joined the research group which he is a member of, the Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.
What About Music?
I see audio as my most familiar tool. I would use that if it is suitable for a certain project, but if not, I do not necessarily use it.
In that sense, I would happily compose and produce film music, or do sound design if projects are interesting and meaningful.
With music production and audiovisual digital music improvisation, I’m not in the mood of making something which sounds or looks just nice. If they are for any interesting project or opportunity, there is no reason to say no to those activities. Or I might do them conceptually, as part of my research-based projects.
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All my works can be found here.
