Opening Reception - Sound Forms

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Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong

Sound Forms festival

SOUND FORMS OPENING RECEPTION | May 16, 6:30 pm

SAMMY CHIEN NEW MEDIA RESIDENCY PRESENTATION | May 16, 5:30 pm

Centre A is excited to welcome Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong's selected program from the Sound Forms festival, featuring works composed by Hildegard Westerkamp, Larry Shuen, Alex Yiu, Barry Truax, Remy Siu, and Vanessa Law. Held last month by CMHK and Hong Kong Art Centre, Sound Forms was the first festival in Hong Kong to focus on multi-channel sound. CMHK Artistic Director and Sound Forms curator Samson Young will be in attendance.

The program consists of 2 new commissions and 1 newly remixed piece by 3 Hong Kong composers, as well as 3 pieces by Canadian composers. The selected pieces fall under 3 themes: soundscape compositions based on field recordings; beatbox, rap, and rhymes made by electronically fragmented vocal patterns and heavily processed speech, which trace tenuous lines in space; and experimental additive synthesis changing the timbre of sound in a multi-channel setting.

Sound Forms is born out of the conviction that one of the most important features of auditory experience is its capacity to reconfigure space: the ephemeral destabilizes rigid structures. It aims to use focused listening to rekindle an ancient understanding of sound as colliding masses, as projection of carrying speeds and infinitely trans-muting forms; in turn, we might reimagine space as fluid, living, and resourcefully voluminous.

Sound Forms hopes to rekindle an ancient understanding of sound as colliding masses, as the projection of carrying speeds and infinitely transmuting forms; through focused listening, we might reimagine space as fluid, living, and voluminous.

Next Wednesday also marks the conclusion of the inaugural residency at our recently established Byron Aceman & Caron Bernstein New Media Gallery, located in Centre A's new space on the 2nd floor of 268 Keefer St.

Sammy Chien, our current artist-in-residence, will be starting off the evening's program with a presentation of the work-in-progress he has been developing at Centre A, a solo interdisciplinary new media performance piece called We(a)ves. This work will investigate migration, race and gender politics, transcultural identity, and spiritual philosophies, all articulated through Chien’s own performance language, which draws from digital technologies, audiovisuals, text, contemporary dance, and Qi Gong practices. We(a)ves will tell a story of life in Vancouver at the intersections of immigration, queerness, racialization, and mental illness.