huishengchang

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Listen/purchase: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Ting Shuo Hear Say

愛麗絲夢遊仙境 關於錯置、轉化、幻聽/象、解離與成為的體現。 This is an embodiment of displacement, transformation, hallucination, dissociation, and becoming. 請打開下方連結，和詩譜與插圖一起聆聽專輯 LISTEN with poetic scores and images with this link: drive.google.com/file/d/1ljQfdF5dhj3mIJ-o4Y_Wi-uzExkepMdD/view 00:00-03:09 I. 掉進兔子洞 Down the Rabbit-hole 03:09-06:55 II. 眼淚池塘 The Pool of Tears 06:55-10:03 III. 委員會賽跑與漫長的故事 A Caucus-race and a Long Tale 10:03-14:40 IV. 兔子派小比爾出馬 The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill 14:40-18:30 V. 毛毛蟲的建議 Advice from a Caterpillar 18:30-21:40 VI. 小豬與胡椒 Pig and Pepper 21:40-25:55 VII. 瘋狂茶會 A Mad Tea-party 25:55-29:17 VIII. 紅心皇后的槌球場 The Queen’s Croquet-ground 29:17-35:05 IX. 假海龜的故事 The Mock Turtle’s Story 35:05-39:35 X. 龍蝦方塊舞 The Lobster Quadrille 39:35-45:00 XI. 誰偷了水果塔 Who Stole the Tarts? 45:00-49:15 XII. 愛麗絲的證詞 Alice’s Evidence

credits

released May 14, 2023 2022年6~7月錄製於比利時布魯塞爾。 錄製於Q-O2駐村期間，受財團法人國家文化藝術基金會補助。 限地人聲即興與錄音：張惠笙 成音：Nigel Brown 詩譜：張惠笙 插圖與手作書：Lorraine Heller-Nicholas Recorded in Brussels, June-July 2022. Recorded in residency at Q-O2, funded by National Culture and Arts Foundation. Site-specific vocal improvisation and recording by Alice Hui-Sheng Chang. Mastered by Nigel Brown. Poetic scores by Alice Hui-Sheng Chang. Images and zines by Lorraine Heller-Nicholas. MORE about images www.heller-nicholas.com/28_alice.html

#bandcamp #release #alice's adventures in wonderland #alice hui-sheng chang #lorraine heller-nicholas

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Glad to be part of this showcase, including a video of my duo with Jessie Scott.  

Curated by Michael Meneghetti. With works by Isobel Knowles and Cat Rabbit, Nina Ross, Jenny Mai Hall, Georgie Roxby Smith, Jessie Scott, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Francesca Lolli and Svaraveena. 

#vimeo showcase #michael meneghetti #jessie scott #alice hui-sheng chang #exhibition

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Surface Noise Vol.6 download available

Surface Noise Vol.6 by Various Artists

#release #alice hui-sheng chang #Jenny Barnes #Shame File Music #Iceage Productions #make it up club #conduit arts #david brown #nigel brown #rosalind hall #tim catlin #Michael McNab #surface noise

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此為集體參與表演譜，建議可以找親友一同體現與發聲。 

This is a collective participative score, welcome to find friends or family to embody and vocalise together.   

此表演譜原為空總台灣當代文化實驗場 Lab Kill Lab 自助飲水站的研究之一。Project first developed as part of Wateria, in Lab Kill Lab event at C-Lab, Taipei, Taiwan. 連結 link：https://lkl.clab.org.tw/labs/1 

更多關於拯救台灣桃園藻礁 More about saving Taoyuan Algal Reef 

http://algalreef.weebly.com/ 

fb: @Taoyuanalgalreefs

#score #writing #participatory performance #performance #taoyuanalgalreefs #clab #labkilllab #wateria #vocal group

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打擊 Percussion: 張幼欣 Sayun Chang 

人聲 Vocal: 張惠笙 Alice Hui-Sheng Chang 

錄影音 Video/sound recorder: Nigel Brown 

@台灣台南億載公園  Yizai Park, Tainan, Taiwan 

2021年四月 April 2021 

 Commissioned by OneBeat Marathon (@1beatmusic) 

美國 OneBeat 線上音樂馬拉松委託創作 

 https://live.bangonacan.org/onebeat-marathon-may-2021/

#performance #documentation #online music festival #alice hui-sheng chang #sayun chang #1beatmusic #OneBeat Marathon #張惠笙 #張幼欣

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Tengilen（聽聆）！聲音在說話。演出者:張惠笙 X 巴賴

@台東美術館 Taitung Art Museum

2020/10/24

#taitung art museum #台東美術館 #performance #documentation #張惠笙 #巴賴 #balai #alice hui-sheng chang #experimental music #taiwanese #tengilen

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Interviewed by ficus S, Translated by Penny Lim Tainan-based Alice Hui-sheng Chang is a sound improviser, art therapist and co-founder of sound organization Ting Shuo Hear Say. Alice weaves between the many facets of her practice with a focus on social connections, togetherness, and the possibilities of non-lingual communication. As a musician, she creates performances as site-specific responses, using a dynamic range of timbres and textures to amplify the acoustic qualities of a space, while also responding to the social conditions in the room. She regularly collaborates with fellow artists/musicians, including 12 Dog Cycle, an experimental duo with sound artist Nigel Brown. Alice is currently working on her solo 12-track album based on Lewis Carroll’s "Alice in Wonderland." She is also projecting towards a forthcoming residency in Belgium early 2021. lololol sits down with Alice to discuss her experiences with sound, connection and the nonverbal.   Q: Can you talk about your work with sound in Tainan? Before returning to Taiwan, Nigel [my partner] and I had performed in Melbourne, Europe and various places. We mostly played for audiences who were familiar with the scene of experimental music, and we appreciated the coming together of people from common backgrounds and shared languages. When we returned to Taiwan 12 years ago, there was a sense of freedom to go beyond the limitations we had previously put on ourselves. Sometimes we would perform for first time listeners of experimental music, which would bring a fresh energy, a new curiosity or excitement to the room. To this day, the audience for Ting Shuo Hear Say remains quite a mix—having people come from different musical backgrounds, it is a constant challenge to translate our music to a diverse crowd. Q: On top of running Ting Shuo Hear Say, you are also an art therapist and sound artist. Do these fields of work correlate with each other? In my own practice, my work as an artist and art therapist go hand in hand. When I run group art therapy sessions, I try to respond to the various expectations or non-expectations in the room. I seek to ‘hold’ the variety of connections that make up the flow of energy in the group. This act of holding is important in my art practice as well, in which I explore how people connect with each other. I use voice as my instrument because it is the most direct communication, and when I perform, I feel I am creating a spider web for holding everything together. When audiences come from different backgrounds, the weight of how each individual leans into the performance varies quite a lot. I try to tune into what is happening in the space, it could be emotions, states of being, or all kinds of body expressions—Is he relaxed? How much of her hair is standing up? Are they immersed in their own inner reflection or inner imagination? For me it is all these small observations that reveal the connections in the room. The observing process is not so much in the head, it is more empirical; by experience and practice, observations become heightened and there is a sensitive tuning process involved while I respond to the collective feeling and atmosphere in the space. Q: As a performer, how do you see your relationship with the audience? There’s a saying, “Two step forward and one step back,” which gives me an image of someone perpetually getting somewhere, slowly. This image relates to my own interpretation of existential theory, which is that loneliness is the core of our existence, and while we come and go as individual bodies, a core aim of life is to connect with each other. During my performances, sometimes I do feel such a [connection between people]. For me, performing is not about selling an idea, it is a medium for people to transition together and enter a realm of suspended space and time. This process involves trusting that every individual has his or her value and identity. Trusting that in a finite time, togetherness will happen and will happen here, and afterwards, we will separate again. My way of engaging with people is very different from the educational system in which I grew up. My school system upheld a hierarchy between teacher and students and maintained that students should be shaped or formed into a certain mold. I believe that everyone is different, there is no unified way, and in my performances, the audience takes in something as their own reflection, their mirrored self, and directs this feedback into whatever they are thinking or whoever they are in that moment in time. After the performance, every individual takes away some residue from the collective experience.

Q: Do you always work with an audience? Sometimes, without an audience, I can work with images or texts in my head. Sometimes, there are from dreams I have had, stories I have read, or just inspirations from my own imagination. I once made a performance using a scene from a Haruki Murakami novel, which described a feeling of sinking down into the ocean, sinking down, losing breath, continually sinking, and so on. I did a couple performances with this departure point. Perhaps for me it is a sad narrative about someone who has lived a life not having their own say and feeling getting more and more choked up. What attracts me to such sorrow is its complexity. Sometimes I find that images are able to describe what language cannot. The ocean, forests, the moon, and scenery…these are typical themes for poets and artists because there are no words that can quite describe them. I attempt to embody an image by putting it inside my body; I feel it and try to form it out. It is an attempt to translate something indescribable to other people. Whilst this process can be understood as a way of communication, it could also be understood more poetically as an artist putting her body in a very imaginative, emotional, complex state and performing it. Q: How do you describe your sound palette? I do not listen to a lot of music, in fact, I find everyday sound much more fitting to my palette of sound--the bathroom fan, vertical roller gate, all the daily industrial or natural sounds that we live in--they embody a language that is honest and real. My voice is shaped by the soundscape of my environment. After performing for many years, it is easy to become fixed, and I try to make myself more flexible. Sometimes I sense an intuition and there is a voice coming out; sometimes I mute that intuition and work with something else. Quite often I work with the feedback people give me about my performances. One of my lecturers from university had once commented that, in my work, silence is more important than the voice. His comment made me reflect on how to use time, how silence still holds certain attention, and carries the residue of the sound that had come before it. It holds an imagination that reflects back to the viewer, like a black mono painting or the blank spaces in Chinese painting. Q: How do you experience space and time in your work? In my earlier work, during my university years, I performed a lot in stairwells, hallways, transitional spaces, as I worked with the idea of travelling. It was not a matter of going from one point to another; it was about the tunnel, the transitional process that happens in between. This practice of working in a perpetual cycle of suspended time and space is perhaps influenced by minimal music or drone-based stuff. Both Nigel and I in our 12 Dog Cycle band, and my other duo with Saxophonist Rosalind Hall, work with this idea. Someone had commented that our music always feels like it is starting and ending all the time, because we are constantly working against the flow, not following any situation and continually surprising ourselves. Q: Is there anything specific you are working on right now? I have always wanted to develop my art therapy practice further. Since coming back to Taiwan, I have spent a lot of my time setting up Ting Shuo and more recently, I have been busy raising our child. But now I find my art practice is becoming more diverse—I have been running workshops for children from age 0 to 6 as well as for old people over ages 60 to 80. Next month, I am running workshops with people who are blind. Meanwhile, I am also working on my solo album, “Alice in Wonderland,” based on Lewis Carroll’s 12-chapter storybook. I will be working on this album and text/contemporary scores in the next few years. (update / 2020.05.26)

#writing #interview #alice hui-sheng chang

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文字整理：雀榕

翻譯：林齊品

張惠笙Alice Hui-Sheng Chang是一名聲音即興創作者、藝術治療師，也是聲音組織「聽說」的共同創辦人，現長駐台南。她的實踐以不同面向交織而成，側重於社群連結、同在感，以及非言語交流的各種可能。作為音樂家，她以演出作為對特定場域的回應，靈活運用不同的音色和肌理，進而放大空間本身的聲響質地，也同時回應現場的社群狀態。她定期與其他藝術家/音樂家合作，包括與聲音藝術家Nigel Brown合作的實驗雙人組合12 Dog Cycle；目前安排於2021年初至比利時進行駐村計畫，她將從Lewis Carroll的愛麗絲夢遊仙境 (Alice in Wonderland)文本來發展製作個人專輯，預計收錄12首曲目。在下文中，lololol和張惠笙對談她在聲音、連結和非言語方面的經驗。 Q：可以談談妳到台南的聲音創作嗎？ 在回到臺灣之前，我和Nigel(我的伴侶)曾在墨爾本、歐洲等地演出，來看我們演出的群眾大多都是對實驗音樂場景有一定熟悉度的，和一群擁有共同背景和語言的人們聚在一起的感覺是美好的。但12年前回到台灣時，我們感受到一種自由，可以去突破先前加諸於自己的限制，我們的表演有時候會遇到第一次接觸實驗音樂的聽眾，他們會為現場帶來一股新的能量、新的好奇心或是興奮感。直到現在，聽說的觀眾還是滿綜合的—人們來自不同的音樂背景，對我們來說要如何把我們的音樂轉譯給這樣的多元群眾是一直是一個挑戰。 Q：除了經營聽說以外，妳也是藝術治療師和聲音藝術家，這些不同的領域之間是否有相互關聯？ 在我個人的實踐中，藝術家和藝術治療師的工作是並行的。當我帶領藝術治療團體時，我會試著回應在場的不同期待或無期待，我力求抱��（hold）那些構成集體能量流的各種連結。而我的藝術實踐中也探索人們如何與彼此連結，所以「抱持」在我的藝術實踐中也很重要。我使用聲音作為我的樂器，因為它是最直接的交流方式，當我表演的時候，我感覺自己像是在編織一張蛛網，把一切人事物都涵容在一起。 當觀眾來自不同的背景時，每個人投入表演的程度也會不同。我會試圖先在這個空間裡專注於正在發生的事，可能是不同的情緒、不同的存在狀態、或各種肢體表達—他放鬆嗎？她與這個演出有多少共鳴？他們是否沉浸在自己的映照或想像裡？對我而言，所有這些微小的觀察都揭示了這個房間裡面的各種連結。這個觀察過程運動到的並非腦，而是身體性的；藉由經驗與實踐，觀察會變得更加敏銳，並且在我回應空間中的集體感受與氛圍時，會產生一種靈敏的調頻過程。 Q：作為一個表演者，你如何看待自己與觀眾的關係？ 有一句諺語是這樣的：“向前走兩步，向後退一步”，這給了我人緩慢地持續前往某處的意象。這個意象與我個人對於存在主義的詮釋有關：孤獨是我們存在的核心，而當我們以個別的軀體在生命中來去，其中的核心目的就是在於與彼此相互連結。有時候在表演中，我會明確感受到這種「人與人之間的連繫」。 對我來說，表演並不是在闡述點子，而是媒介，讓人們共同過渡並進入懸宕的時空界域。這個過程就涉及到，去相信每個人擁有他/她的價值與身份，並且相信在有限的時間內，所謂的同在會發生，發生在此時此地，其後我們將再次分離。 我與人交往的方式和我養成的教育體系非常不同，我受教的學校保有師生之間明確的階級關係，認為學生應該以某種模板被塑造。 而我相信每個人都是獨一無二的，沒有辦法被化約。在我的表演中，觀眾會依照自己的反射和鏡像自我來理解一些事物，並在後續的時間中帶著這樣的理解，回返自身所想，或去指涉他當下的樣子。也就是說表演之後，每個人都會從這個集體經驗後帶走一些殘存物。 Q：妳的作品是否總是會有觀眾參與？ 有時候沒有觀眾參與其中，這些時候我會以腦海中的圖像或文字來進行。有時候靈感來自於我曾經做過的夢、讀過的故事、或是想像所帶給我的啟發。我曾經使用村上春樹小說中的場景進行表演，描述一種沉入大海，下沉、失去呼吸、然後持續下沉的感覺，我以這個為題材進行了幾次演出。或許因為這對我來說是一個悲傷的敘事，描述一個人終其一生缺失自己的發聲權，而逐漸感到愈來愈語塞，故事中的悲傷吸引我的是它的多種可能的層次。 有時候我發現圖像可以描述語言做不到的，海洋、森林、月亮、風景…這些都是詩人和藝術家常見的主題，因為沒有詞語能夠很好地描述它們。我試著將這些影像放進我的身體裡去體現它；我感受它，再試著讓它成形。這同時也是一種把不可言說的事物轉譯給他人的嘗試，雖然這個過程可以理解成一種溝通方式，但也可以從較為詩意的角度理解為：藝術家將其身體置於非常具有想像力、情感豐富、複雜的狀態並進行表演。 Q：妳會如何描述妳各種聲音語彙？ 我沒有聽非常多音樂，事實上，我發現日常的聲響更符合我發聲的來源—浴室的風扇、垂直鐵捲門，所有這些在日常中環繞我們的工業或自然聲響—它們體現了一種誠實且真實的語言，我的聲音是被我身處環境中的音景所形塑的。 表演這麼多年之後，有些東西很容易固定下來，所以我會試著讓自己變得更加靈活。有時候我會感到一種有聲音要發出來的直覺；有時候我會暫時不採用那個直覺，找其他方式發聲。我也常針對觀眾給我的回饋進行創作發展，我大學時期的一個教授曾經給過我這樣的評語：在我的作品中，靜默比聲音更重要。他的評語讓我深思如何運用時間，以及靜默是如何引起注意，並且傳遞餘音，而當中的想像空間會投映回聽者的身上，就像是黑色的單色畫或中國畫裡的留白那樣。 Q：妳如何經驗自己創作中的時間與空間？ 我大學階段的早期作品中，因為常以旅行(travelling)為題創作，所以我經常在樓梯間、走廊等各種過渡空間演出，重點不在於移動，而是關於通道，介於兩者之間的這個過渡過程。這種在懸宕的時空的不斷循環中進行創作的做法，可能是受到極簡音樂或持續音(drone-based)音樂的影響，像我和Nigel組的12 Dog Cycle，還有另一個我和薩克斯風手Rosalind Hall的雙人組，都是以這個為基礎進行創作。有人曾經評論，我們的音樂總是讓他感覺到一直在開始和結束，那是因為我們一直逆反著流動去進行創作，不跟隨任何情況，並且持續地讓自己感到驚訝。 Q：近期有正在進行的創作或計畫嗎？ 我一直想進一步發展我的藝術治療實踐，回到臺灣這段時間，我花了很多時間建立聽說，最近又忙於扶養孩子，但是現在我發現我的藝術實踐變得越來越多樣化—我有為0-6歲的孩子以及60-80歲的長者舉辦的聲音工作坊，然後下個月我會舉辦一個視障者的工作坊。同時，我也在進行我的個人專輯”Alice in Wonderland”，根據Lewis Carroll 12個章節的原著故事發想，所以接下來幾年主要就是這張專輯的文字與實驗譜曲的發展。 (update / 2020.05.26)

#writing #interview #alice hui-sheng chang

[huishengchang]

Musicians and sound artists located in 17 cities made an audio recording simultaneously during physical distancing amid Covid-19 pandemic, one minute from each recording is used to create a 17-minute continuous piece.

Complete presentation with images and description of each location and their surroundings is here. ericszehonwong.tumblr.com/distancedcontinuity The order of sound from each minute is as follows: 00’00” – 00’59” Félicie Bazelaire, 2/4/2020, 13:00, Paris 01’00” – 01’59” Johnny Chang, 3/4/2020, 00:01, Auckland 02’00” – 02’59” Félix-Antoine Morin, 2/4/2020, 18:02, Hanoi 03’00” – 03’59” Yuen Chee Wai, 2/4/2020, 19:03, Singapore 04’00” – 04’59” Gabriela Areal, 2/4/2020, 08:04, Buenos Aires 05’00” – 05’59” Yan Jun, 2/4/2020, 19:05, Beijing 06’00” – 06’59” Catherine Clover, 2/4/2020, 22:06, Melbourne 07’00” – 07’59” Beat Keller, 2/4/2020, 13:07, Winterthur 08’00” – 08’59” Eric Wong, 2/4/2020, 13:08, Berlin 09’00” – 09’59” Anders Ørbæk, 2/4/2020, 13:09, Aarhus 10’00” – 10’59” Lauri Hyvärinen, 2/4/2020, 14:10, Vantaa 11’00” – 11’59” Germaine Sijstermans, 2/4/2020, 13:11, Heerlen 12’00” – 12’59” Casey & Johan Moir, 2/4/2020, 13:12, Gothenburg 13’00” – 13’59” Denis Sorokin, 2/4/2020, 14:13, Saint Petersburg 14’00” – 14’59” Alice Chang & Nigel Brown, 2/4/2020, 19:14, Tainan 15’00” – 15’59” Annie Garlid, 2/4/2020, 07:15, New York City 16’00” – 16’59” Steve Hui, 2/4/2020, 19:16, Hong Kong creditsreleased April 6, 2020

#release #Félicie Bazelaire #Johnny Chang #Félix-Antoine Morin #Yuen Chee Wai #Gabriela Areal #Yan Jun #Catherine Clover #Beat Keller #Eric Wong #Anders Ørbæk #Lauri Hyvärinen #Germaine Sijstermans #Casey & Johan Moir #Denis Sorokin #Nigel Brown #alice hui-sheng Chang #Annie Garlid #Steve Hui #experimental music

[huishengchang]

#alice hui-sheng chang #exhibition #documentation #張惠笙 #龍泉生態月台 #2019麻豆糖業大地藝術祭

[huishengchang]

講座全程影片(分3段) 3 parts videos of the talk

「藝術脫殼-聲音的在地翻譯Ｉ」: 團體人聲即興的社會互動

An Social Experiment from Voca Group Improvisation

＊講者：張惠笙（藝術家）＊開講時間：2016.07.02＊地點：齁空間 

＊Speaker： Alice Hui-Sheng Chang（Artist）＊Date：2016.07.02＊Venue：Howl Space

【關於講座】 張惠笙從2006年開始實驗一系列的團體人聲創作即興。「躡步張嘴」為最近期的一系列創作，於2015年在澳洲伯斯與墨爾本演出。惠笙將於這次講座中，分享此系列創作和過去其他團體人聲的演出實驗，也帶大家體驗自己人聲的可能性。

「躡步張嘴」希望以經驗參與來重設我們對於空間中原音的存在感。團體以人聲聲音來短暫的充斥並轉化我們的熟悉空間：如大廳、樓梯間、走廊或房間。並不是來強加敘事故事於空間上，或是改變空間的用途；而是希望轉化基礎的空間感官體驗，另發想對日常生活中新的可能存在感。

藉由簡單的行走、停留、並彼此交錯，表演者與觀眾之間發展出短暫的開放連結。並用耳朵接收環境所給予的一系列錯綜複雜的音場反射，對周遭有更親密並更敏銳的感官接觸。在表演過渡中，有時間吊懸的錯覺，並感受空間的中介無界。

「我對於團體人聲的興趣在於其以多元人際思考出發的小型社會實驗可能性。我發現人在即興時，當沒有了文字語言，仍持續表達自己的性情與個人文化連結。當我們彼此同時以聲音來表達，我們可以表現出各人的個性，也同時表現出團體的個性（例如有人以比較謹慎的言詞思緒，有些人比較多變化無定，有些人的個人界線比較窄，容易融入他人聲音引領等等）。我們存在的空間為影響我們如何體現與互動的主軸。」

Alice Hui-Sheng Chang has been developing a series of vocal group performances since 2006. ‘Gentle steps with an open mouth’ is a recent series presented with performers in Perth and Melbourne, Australia in 2015. Alice will present this series, and other examples of her vocal group practices. She will also invite you to experience other possibilities of your own voice.   

‘Gentle steps with an open mouth’ seeks to re-engage people with their acoustic surroundings in a participatory experience. The vocal group temporarily occupies and transforms familiar spaces in the foyer, stairwells, corridors or rooms through sound. The aim is not to impose a narrative on the space, nor to challenge its purpose or utility; but to collapse common perspective and allow the birth of new possibilities within the everyday. 

Walking, pausing and passing one another, the performers and audience members generate moments of openness. An intimate awareness of our surroundings is embodied in a complex series of reflections arriving back at our ears, relocating our perception through heightened receptivity. In transitioning, there is a potential to suspend time and situate in the liminal space. 

“I’m interested in vocal groups as small social experiments in the diversity in human social interactions. I found people in improvising, with language removed, they still have their own personality and personal cultural attachments. Hence as a sound interaction, we can highlight each person’s character as well as the character of a group (eg. some people have a thoughtful serious nature, where some are evasive and changing, and some have narrower personal boundaries, and merge with people, etc). The space we are in plays a core part of influencing how we exist/interact.”

#vocal group #writing #documentation #workshop #alice hui-sheng chang

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大音希聲 - 南、北管 談X彈 實驗音樂 Dai Im Hi Shing - Nanguan x Experimental Music x Beiguan 日期 date：2018/11/23 Venue: 玩劇島小劇場 Little Play, Taichung, Taiwan

表演者 Performers: 吳欣霏 Xin-Fei Wu, 黃貞婷 Chen-Ting Huang, 12 dog cycle (張惠笙 Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Nigel Brown)

#performance #documentation #nanguan #experimental music #alice hui-sheng chang #nigel brown #xin-fei wu #chen-ting huang #吳欣霏 #黃貞婷 #張惠笙 #玩劇島 #little play taichung

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Asian Meeting Festival: Alice Chang 2018.02.17 Interview

Interview by Yoshiyuki Sugawa and Narushi Hosoda Post from: 

http://asianmusic-network.com/en/archive/2018/02/alice-chang.html No background in music

- First off, can you tell me about your musical background? I don't have such thing as a musical background. - Really (laugh) ? No really. I studied art. I lived in Taiwan till I was 17, then I went to Melbourne to study sound art. I have no training in music or voice performances. - What did you specifically study in sound art? I studied in a media art department so I also made video works, but most of what I did was related to sound. More specifically it was voice rather than sound, and I was making works that used voice since my first year. I would use my voice as materials for a composition and of course also improvise with my voice too. During my first year I did make a piece with toys that made sound, but everything else was related to voice. - When did you start focusing on voice? It was very intuitive. Since I started performing, I would reflect and find many possibilities in the voice. It's robably because I was living in a foreign country in an environment where I had to speak a different language. The most important aspect in my performance and artwork is their relationship to communication. Therefore, the most direct medium to communicate was the voice. - Were you performing with your voice before you entered university? In high school I did take part in a choir but I was not serious about performing with my voice. - So you didn't go to university to study voice but rather that you discovered afterwards? Yes - When you started expressing yourself with voice were there other voice performers that you referenced? The first artist that influenced me when I started performing with my voice during my second year of studies was Spanish composer and performer Fatima Miranda. She is my biggest idol. Miranda studied in India and makes graphic scores or composes with recordings made from her voice. - Where there other students around you that were working with voice? Not really. There were others who were making work with sounds that they recorded. Up until my second year I had a cellist and guitarist classmate and we would exchange sounds to use in each other's work. - Your voice technique is very unique - was this developed on your own? Yes. However there are aspects in my technique that I developed my through playing with other people. Sometimes I try to imitate their sounds. For example, during my first year I played a lot with a cellist who created very complex sound s through preparation on his instrument and extended techniques. By trying to imitate those sounds I discovered new ways to use my voice. - Were you never interested in singing normal songs? I am a very bad singer (laugh)! I can't even whistle. I think I am better at doing strange things. Voice Performance - I felt that maybe after our experience in Tango, your performance changed a little compared to what I heard before. I thought that maybe the sounds in the mountain, the insects, or what we could hear off the cliff might have fed-back into your performance. In terms of imitating, as you mentioned earlier, did these influence you at all? Yes of course. However my performances are always changing. The environment, the situation, the context all change what I do when I perform. That is because I am always conscious of the space that I perform in. - Was there a moment where you imitated the sounds of cicadas? Did I sound like that (laugh)? Yesterday's concert (September 21, 2017) at Sendai Mediatheque the sound around me was very loud so rather than pitches I was thinking of frequencies and trying to find where my voice can be heard. So maybe it sounded like an insect. - Did you ever play an instrument? Never seriously. In elementary school I had to take piano lessons but I only did it because my parents told me to, so I hated it (laugh) . But if you ask me if I have a background in art, that changes depending on the person asking. For me, media art was an attempt to focus on our experiences as people. I was thinking of how the audience would experience my performances. Being aware of the space and the intimacy felt by the audience in order to guide them to another place is what is fundamental for me in media art, and I consider this practice my background. - I understand what you are saying. Maybe this is not a good metaphor, but I thought your performances were like a bat. Meaning that you have a very special awareness of the space. Voice performers with a musical background usually stand on stage and try to deliver their voice to the audience from there, but it feels like your are researching characteristics of the space using your voice. Yes I am very aware of the things you mentioned. Although, I have never thought of myself as a bat (laugh) . - So are you more interested in performing in places like museums or elementary schools, which this tour has taken you, where the space is not made for sound over venues that are meant for playing music? I am interested in both. There are ways to perform in both kinds of spaces. Each live venue has their own characteristics, don't they? That is the same as when I perform in relationship to a space in a museum. Yesterday's Sendai mediatheque had no acoustic characteristics that changed depending where I stood, so I didn't have to move around. Everyone was making large sounds, so I focused on techniques using the microphone. Using a microphone and technology to amplify one's voice is also a way to communicate using voice as a medium. When I mediate my voice, what the audience hears is separate from my personal voice. That becomes closer to a "voice" that we can all share. We can think of it as a "voice" that exists between the audience and ourselves. - When you talk about using the microphone as part of the voice performance, for example, C. Spencer Yeh who is touring with you also produces voice sounds that wouldn't be possible without the microphone. But you use the microphone in a very different way than Spencer. Spencer uses his voices as one of his sonic materials. He also uses other sources and abstracts them through processing with electronics. My approach is completely different - the process in which I abstract my voice within me is very important. That's why our use of the microphone is also very different although we are both using voice. For me the microphone is the same as the space or a frame and I am interested in the process how I can abstract my voice with in it. Composition and Workshops

- Although you may not make musical compositions, when you make works of sound art you also select and structure sounds. How much improvisation is involved in these works? Earlier I said that I have no musical background, but that only means that I never have been trained in traditional musical education. Within many contexts such as contemporary music and experimental music one can say that sound art is music as well. I do have a background in this. Within that context if we talk about my compositions, I believe there are two sides - compositions recorded and released on CDs and compositions within live performances. Recorded compositions are recorded in one take to try to capture the improvisational moments and the momentum. If we talk about composing for live performances, improvising live is like constantly composing based on the judgments you make at each moment. In that sense there is composition within improvisation. When I improvise with my voice, I am always trying to go against my own patterns like habits or what I am used to doing. So even during a live performance and I think "this is the right voice to make now" I often would not do that on purpose. I feel like surprise is a very important aspect for a performance, so I try to think of how to keep the surprises happening and make a whole piece by putting these together. - What kind of compositional work do you make? I make compositions to make music with a group. In these cases I conduct a workshop at the beginning. For example I would collect about 12-20 people who are not performers and have them make sounds with their voice based on a simple structure that I have prepared. We try to find out about our voice among many voices within a particular space. Sometimes we do a simple improvisational game. - That sounds interesting. Can you tell me more about the workshop you do? There are several uploaded online, but basically there are two types. One is where I interact with the audience while I perform. The other is that I ask people in the audience for volunteers and they take part. For example, there is a very simple voice performance that I did in 2005 together with the audience. We first went to a park and I gave a simple instruction to each participant. Each person were given sounds to make like "aaaaaaa" or "ho ho ho ho" and instructed to say it differently. Afterwards, we divided into two teams and each team got on a boat in the lake that was within the park. As we arrive to where there were no other people and were only surrounded by nature, each team stood on the shore opposite from each other. Then we form a pair with someone on the other side of lake and when one makes their sound that was given to them the other in pair would respond with their sound. One doesn't have to respond immediately, and can do it at their own timing. This was a very simple performance but the feedback I received afterwards was very good, and I felt that a super natural space emerged where everyone experienced an unusual non-verbal communication. This was a huge experience for me both as a participant and as an individual. - For this kind of work do you also think about repeating it in another place? Or can these works only happen at specific locations? It depends on the idea that led to the work, but in most cases they were inspired by specific locations, so in that sense they would be difficult to repeat somewhere else. For example the piece that I just described to you was in a park that had a very special bird, and I wanted to include the bird's cry as part of the performance. Even if I extracted the same instructions and did it in another place that will likely become another performance. Also because this work only has simple instructions and in actuality the participants are the ones who make it, with different participants inevitably the performance will also change. I suppose even in that case there would be something that feeds back to me. Self-organized space "Ting Shuo" - I heard that you run your own space in Tainan and organized concerts and workshops there. Can you tell me what kind of space it is? It's called "Ting Shuo" (http://tingshuostudio.org) which I run together with Nigel Brown who is an Australian experimental musician and also my husband. It is in Tainan in Taiwan, and we only started to do performances since last August, so it is still new for us. Experimental music itself is still new and exotic in Tainan. We are trying to have our space as a community space or a place for education. Also in organizing the space we have two basic rules. One is to have it accessible. We want it to be a friendly and an open space for anyone. Second is to provide space to people who come. By actively engaging in conversations, we want people who come for the first time to feel like they are part of a community here. - How big is the space. It is very small. In japan about 24 tatami mats (six square meters). The building is about 50 years old and we have the event space on the ground floor and living space on top. We sometimes serve a meal before our concerts. Usually we get an average of about 20 people to our concerts but for workshops we limit the participants to 10 people. What we emphasize equally at both concerts and other events is to converse with the people that come. Today you are interviewing me, but in Taiwan there are hardly any texts on experimental music, so it is very important to have direct conversations about this. Another thing we try to insist on is for the performing artists to challenge themselves. We think that the artists should not only play something to the audience but learn something from the audience. Since our space is small we want the artists that are invited to try out something new or something experimental rather than showing off their best performance. I want this space to help one find a new approach to their practice. I think it's important for both the artists and audience that the experience leads to something. - Are the people who perform mostly from Tainan? Do you invite people from abroad? We are very small space with little money so we do not pay for air fair for artists to come, but some musicians will find their own funding and play at our space. They will receive a grant to tour Asia, and Ting Shuo would be one of the stops. Actually we get a lot of requests from artists abroad but since we are small we only do one concert per month. When there is someone coming from abroad we always book a local musician. It becomes a precious experience. - I think your activities as both an artists and organizer will be become more significant in future. What did you think of the AMF tour? I have never played so many concerts in such a short period of time, and there are many moments where I have to use my voice in extreme ways, so I was very careful of controlling my energy so that I could performance in the best condition at each concert. Although I organize a space in Tainan, I am also a traveller and I go to many different countries for residencies and performances. Therefore, "meeting" is very important for me, and in that sense the AMF was a very good experience for me.

#writing #alice hui-sheng chang #asian meeting festival #interview

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線上聆聽、免費下載 (含計畫註解)

Streaming and free download, including notes

#publication #composition #TTTIFA #大稻埕國際藝術節 #思劇場 #thinkers theatre #alice hui sheng chang #Nigel Brown #yannick dauby #David Chen #release #exhibition #documentation

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Experimental music festival in Singapore run by The Observatory band~ 

Women only this year! 

#playfreely #no man's land #Singapore experimental music #performance #live performance #experimental music festival

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Experimental Music Festival in Seoul, South Korea!

What a gathering~  

#dotolimpic #dotolim #seoul experimental music #performance #live performance #experimental music festival

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縫 盜 聲 程 遊：稻埕發聲 Weave Rob Sound Process Roam

《縫 盜 聲 程 遊：稻埕發聲》 是個聲音藝術的計劃和演出，2017大稻埕國際藝術節，由三位聲音藝術家來做現場演出：澎葉生(YannickDauby)、Nigel Brown 和張惠笙 (Alice Hui-Sheng Chang) /策展人：陳思銘 （David Chen) https://fengdaoshengchengyou.tumblr.com/ 現場演出：思劇場 2017.10.15. ｜ 第一場： 14:30 ｜ 第二場：19:30 買票：goo.gl/kVo4Qz 裝置展覽：URS127 2017.10.9- 2017.10.31 免費入場 這次表演元素如同表演名稱 「縫 盜 聲 程 遊 ：稻埕發聲」，反應大稻埕的歷史發展及藝術家的實體演出。Nigel、Alice 及 Yannick 將探索整個區域，並錄下當地的聲音，將這些錄音檔融入在現在表演中。這三人團體雖都居住在台灣，但對大稻埕並不熟悉，有如當年林藍田來到這，一個陌生人在一塊陌生的土地。Nigel、Alice 及 Yannick 將以局外人「嶄新的耳」去探索大稻埕並與她互動，演出當日這三人團體將會與當地的環境及空間建立緊密的關係，以全新的方式表現大稻埕！ 2017 TTTIFA http://www.tttifa.com/show8.html ---------------- << Weave-Rob-Sound-Process-Roam: A Sound Art Project in Dadaocheng >> A sound art project and performace for the 2017 Tua-Tiu-Tiann International Festival of the Arts by Nigel Brown, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang and Yannick Dauby Two performances on Oct 15 at Thinker's Theater 2:30pm and 7:30pm Tickets: 500nt / Purchase online: goo.gl/kVo4Qz Installation/Exhibition at URS127 from Oct. 9 to Oct. 31 Entrance is Free

More update posts: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/693612870833166/

#TTTIFA #大稻埕國際藝術節 #alice hui-sheng chang #Nigel Brown #yannick dauby #david chen #thinkers theatre #思劇場 #performance #live performance #exhibition #artist talk