panic//void :: audiovisual performance

Immersive, audiovisual ritual delving into the liminal spaces between form and formlessnesss, panic and void, light and darkness. Improvisation between humans and machines, audio and visuals, ZYKLOS stretches the brutality of dichotomies until the structures fall apart into something that can be hybrid, whole, unquestioned, and simply experienced.

In the liminal space between being and nothingness, ZYKLOS invites you to confront the void, where the boundaries between self and other blur into a haze of uncertainty. Neon flickers against stark white, fleeting glimpses of form amidst formlessness. As human and machine improvisers intertwine, they challenge our notions of identity and control. Through this more-than-human dialogue, ZYKLOS creates a sonic landscape that resists easy categorization and leans into the exhilaration of our own transience…can we glimpse into transcendence, the fleeting moment where the veil between being and nothingness becomes beautifully transparent?

ZYKLOS (Melody Chua, Chi Him Chik // AIYA, Aiii) is an ensemble and lab comprising of two humans and two improvisation machines. ZYKLOS' practice of working with sonic improvisation machines reflects on the relationships that arise and become destabilised in human-machine constellations. On the one hand, this context views the machines as extensions of the human mind-body, but crucially on the other hand, it intentionally adopts a resistance against treating the non-human in the colonialistic sense of imposing our identities and control over them. Instead, the practice of improvising with machines is that of creating “resistance machines” that challenges our human identities and languages. Through this practice, we form new sensitivities, ways of relating, and ways of knowing beyond the anthropologic gaze. In the context of improvisation, our primary working method, this implies a confrontation and continual negotiation with uncertainties—a more-than-human dialogue of understanding that takes the form of music-making, translation, and movement across different bodies, both visible and invisible.

Zürcher Hochschule der Künste

Immersive Arts Space

Förrlibuckstrasse 109

8005 Zürich

Enter via the car gate underneath the ramp. Follow the road turning left until you reach the giant delivery door on the left (see map below):

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Host or Publisher Melody Chua