[press release]
Around sound art festival 2015
presented by soundpocket
18.11 – 18.12.2015
curated by Aki Onda (JP/ US) and Helen Homan Wu (US/ HK)
@ Osage Gallery, Karin Weber Gallery, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong & McAulay Studio, Hong Kong Arts Centre
Participating Artists|
Chelpa Ferro (Brazil) | Feng Hao (PRC) | Phoebe Hui (HK) | Eli Keszler (US) | Jacob Kirkegaard (Denmark/ Germany) | Rie Nakajima (JP/UK) | Sergei Tcherepnin (US) | Dennis Wong (HK)
About Around sound art festival 2015
Examining the contemporary phenomena of sound art, the fifth edition of the Around sound art festival, Around sound art festival 2015 seeks to uncover the multi-layered range of perspectives by showcasing the artistic process behind concepts dealing with sound. The exhibitions bring together local and international artists, each with a very distinct set of language, tools and techniques used in resonating their ideas. Aside from the exhibition, through performances, workshops and talks, we attempt to break down assumptions that audiences might have on the definition of sound art.
This year, the festival is curated by Aki Onda (JP / US) and Helen Homan Wu (US/ HK) in which they explore how a new generation of sound and visual artists use sound as an artistic medium or conceptual art form. Artists Chelpa Ferro (Brazil), Feng Hao (PRC), Phoebe Hui (HK), Eli Keszler (US), Jacob Kirkegaard (Denmark/ Germany), Rie Nakajima (JP/UK) and Sergei Tcherepnin (US) are invited to exhibit their works at Osage Gallery and Karin Weber Gallery. Talks and performances will be presented together with Dennis Wong (HK) at School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong and McAulay Studio, Hong Kong Arts Centre.
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Venue Information
Osage Gallery
4/F, Union Hing Yip Factory Building, 20 Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong, Hong Kong
www.osagegallery.com
Karin Weber Gallery
G/F, 20 Aberdeen Street, Central, Hong Kong
www.karinwebergallery.com
School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong
Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, 18 Tat Hong Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
www.scm.cityu.edu.hk
Sonic Anchor by Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong
McAulay Studio, Hong Kong Arts Centre, 2 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
www.cmhk.org
About the artists
Chelpa Ferro (Brazil) was created in 1995 by artists Luiz Zerbini, Barrão and Sergio Mekler in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As a multimedia group, Chelpa Ferro presents experiments in electronic music, video, objects and installations in exhibitions, live performances and records. The group has already made presentations in art galleries and museums in Brazil, United States and Europe. It has also participated in art biennials, such as that of São Paulo and that of Venice and has played live concerts in the UK, United States and Europe.
Feng Hao (PRC) is an art creator. His works mainly focus on sound art and experimental music, and that involve in drawings, performances, images, performing arts and design etc., which makes him an interdisciplinary artist with various styles. He researches on performances with pre-made guitars and explores every possibility in it. He also creates works in sound art in which they relate to social phenomenon; and creates plunderphonic works with the name “DJ Strausss”. He has an experimental band Walnut Room which explores music languages such as improvisation, industrial, no wave, dark wave, etc. and expressions in performing arts.
Phoebe Hui (HK) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher primarily working in the relationship between language, sound and technology. Hui received her MFA at UCLA Design Media Art, MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and her BA in Creative Media from City University of Hong Kong. She is the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including Yale-China Art Fellowship, Hong Kong Art Development Council Young Artist Award (Media Art), Asian Cultural Council Altius Fellowship, Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award, Asian Cultural Council United States-Japan Arts Program Research Fellowship, Hong Kong Art Development Council Art Scholarship, Hong Kong Design Association Design Student Scholarship, among others. She had presented her research-based art practice and papers in different places such as ISEA, MIT Media Lab, Asian Contemporary Art Week, Metropolitan Museum of Art, to name a few. Currently, she is teaching in the Visual Arts and Culture program at the Hong Kong Design Institute.
Eli Keszler (US) is a New York based artist, composer and percussionist who situates his practice within the intersections of architecture, performance, installation, notation and composition. His work uses microprocessor-controllers and sound producing constructions that activate motors to strike, scrape and vibrate enclosures. These works are often accompanied by collections of visual works, drawings and scores. His installations can be experienced autonomously or with an ensemble/solo performance featuring Keszler’s aggressively propulsive drumming.
Jacob Kirkegaard (Denmark/ Germany) is an artist and composer who works in carefully selected environments to generate recordings that are used in compositions, or combined with video imagery in visual, spatial installations. His works reveal unheard sonic phenomena and present listening as a means of experiencing the world. Kirkegaard has recorded sonic environments as different as subterranean geyser vibrations, empty rooms in Chernobyl, Arctic calving glaciers and tones generated by the human inner ear itself. He is now based in Berlin.
Rie Nakajima (JP/UK) is a Japanese artist working with installations and performances that produce sound. Her works are most often composed in direct response to unique architectural spaces using a combination of kinetic devices and found objects. She has exhibited and performed widely both in the UK and overseas and has produced ‘Sculpture’ with David Toop since 2013. With Keiko Yamamoto she has a music project, ‘O YAMA O’ which explores music with no genre. She frequently collaborates with David Cunningham, Miki Yui, Pierre Berthet, Guy De Bièvre in the crossing area of art and music. She has performed with Angharad Davies, Clive Bell, Johan Vandermaelen, Lee Patterson, Shuichi Chino, Daichi Yoshikawa, Junko Wada, Lau Nau, Phill Niblock and many others. She is from Yokohama and currently based in London.
Sergei Tcherepnin (US) was born in 1981 in Boston, Massachusetts and currently lives and works in New York. His recent solo shows include exhibitions at Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, with Ei Arakawa (2011), the CAC Brétigny, Paris, France, with Ei Arakawa and Gela Patashuri (2011), and the Showroom, London, with Ei Arakawa and Gela Patashuri (2011).
Dennis Wong (HK), a.k.a. Sin:Ned, is an improviser, experimentalist and noise practitioner from Hong Kong. He is the co-founder of Re-Records, Twenty Alpha, and the Hong Kong organizer of JOLT Festival. He is the core member of No One Pulse, After Doom, adeō and underture, and the main advocator of the Hong Kong underground experimental music scene with his prolific output and concert series Noise to Signal and festival series Kill The Silence. His works have been featured in the infamous Belgium imprint Sub Rosa’s “An Anthology of Chinese Electronic Music” and “An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music Vol. 7”.
About the Curators
Aki Onda (JP / US) is a sound artist, curator, and the Music Director of TPAM (Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama). Onda was born in Japan and currently resides in New York. He is particularly known for his Cassette Memories project – works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by Onda over a span of two decades. In recent years, Onda often works in interdisciplinary fields and collaborates with filmmakers, choreographers and visual artists such as Michael Snow, Ken Jacobs, Raha Raissinia, and Maxime Rossi. Onda has performed at P.S.1 MoMA, (New York), ICA (London), Louvre Museum, Palais de Tokyo, Fondation Cartier (Paris), Bozar, Wiels (Brussels), Sound Live Tokyo (Tokyo) and many others. As a curator, Onda has organized major performances and exhibitions throughout North America, including events of Japanese artists at The Kitchen, ISSUE Project Room, Audio Visual Arts (New York), Images Festival (Toronto) and Time-Based Art Festival (Portland).
Helen Homan Wu (US/ HK) was born in Hong Kong and is a New York native; she is a curator, cultural producer and consultant. She is the founder of Opalnest, an agency and curatorial platform that represents emerging to mid-career artists who are conceptually minded yet experimental and multi-disciplinary in practice. She has presented artists such as Carsten Nicolai, Arto Lindsay, Haegue Yang, Aki Onda, Wang Jianwei, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Nadim Abbas, Raha Raissnia, Jacob Kirkegaard, among others. As a producer, she has produced and managed major initiatives such as Art Basel Hong Kong’s inaugural cultural events, Creative Time/ICI’s “Living as Form” in Hong Kong and New York, Armory Art Week’s public events, Today is the Day Foundation’s art auction events, etc. She is currently focused on research in China and the South Asian regions.
About soundpocket, presenter of Around
soundpocket is a registered charitable organization in Hong Kong, founded in 2008 as a direct response to the increasing interest of sound art in Hong Kong, the demand for public awareness and education in the sense of hearing and deep listening, and the need for cultural sensitivity in creative practices. As a promoter, educator, facilitator, and gatherer, soundpocket is committed to the long-term nurturing of active listeners. Since its inception, soundpocket has collaborated with non-profit organizations, small enterprises, independent voiceworkers and musicians, and curators of contemporary art on various art and cultural projects. soundpocket positions itself in the fields of sound, art and culture by initiating interdisciplinary projects that bring multiple art forms and a variety of cultural contexts into the focus of sound and listening. In this sense, soundpocket supports not just an art form, but ideas and possibilities that engage with aesthetically meaningful, culturally-grounded and publicly relevant sonic practices, which have a lot to teach about how we understand the world and the experiences yet to be valued. www.soundpocket.org.hk