phantom//wash

Immersive, multimedia noise performance phantom//wash by STUDIO ZYKLOS (Melody Chua, Chi Him Chik) premieres at the ZHdK Immersive Arts Space on October 17th/18th at 19:30. Please arrive 10 minutes prior to the start of the event.

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format: live performance with self-developed improvisation machines AIYA and Aiii; 3D/ambisonics sound system, live projections, haze, lights
duration: 45’
trigger warning: death, suicide, strobe, noise

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so put your hand on my chest,
and feel my honesty.
I feel very alive, but not in control.

the chaos of the data matrix,
as if it is teaching me something new,
as if everything I do now is simply the future trying to express itself.
as if, getting to know myself
is, in fact, getting to know who I used to be.
and the moment of getting to know one’s self
is also the death of that former self.
how fluid our own identities truly are.

every seven years we are literally, completely new beings.
every cell, dead and replaced.
we wonder, how all these new cells have remembered
how to be alive in the way
of their dead ancestors,
and what ghosts, when understood,
make us whole.

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STUDIO ZYKLOS is an ensemble and lab comprised of Melody Chua and Chi Him Chik—both of whom come from a classical training of flute and saxophone, respectively. In the last decade, they have amassed a comprehensive résumé in contemporary performance practice, experimental music, immersive audiovisual composition, and improvisation. The core of ZYKLOS' practice is performing with self-developed improvisation machines (Aiii and AIYA) in order to challenge their methods of improvisation and push them to find new ways of human-machine interaction, collaboration, and production. ZYKLOS aims to destabilize traditional hierarchies of human and machine, create innovative formats for music performance, and develop narratives beyond the anthropologic gaze. Personal storytelling through interactive media is at the heart of everything ZYKLOS does—a more-than-human dialogue of understanding that takes the form of music-making, translation, and movement across different bodies, both visible and invisible.

zyklos.studio

Considered a “pioneer in the development of interdisciplinary performances with new technologies” (Zürich University of the Arts Jahresbericht 2021), transdisciplinary media artist/performer Melody (Melo) Chua draws audiences into intimate worlds, driven by her concept of chaos performance—a highly sensitive and nuanced practice in deep listening through density as a means to navigate the borderlands and her personal investigations surrounding death, intergenerational trauma, identity, and sociopolitical resistance. As both a classically-trained musician, experimental sound+media artist, and professional systems engineer, she collaborates with visual artists, dancers, and musicians in both institutional and underground contexts, as both an agent and bridge between worlds.

“There was never the impression of music determined by technology. Melody Chua uses technology as a means to an end, transcends it musically and breathes life into her performance in a way that speaks directly to the emotions” (Anzeiger von Uster).

Melo is currently a doctoral candidate in artistic research at the Kunstuniversität Graz and in residence at the ZHdK Immersive Arts Space.

chua.ch

Multi-disciplinary and media artist/performer Chi Him Chik draws inspirations from reflections on conflicts, dilemma, and pain from personal experiences as well as social and political events, including movements in his hometown Hong Kong and the ongoing threats and concerns on human rights and freedom from China, while creating works through the combination of media, from audio to visuals, generative to compositional, fixed media to interactive art, in, but not limited to, a performative sense.

Chi Him refers to the artistic languages of the New York downtown scene
downtown scene and the Japanese noise music scene of the last century, oscillating and morphing between practices and identities, combining skills, abilities, knowledge and aesthetics from different artistic fields, exploring and expanding the in-between and finally transforming his spectrum of artistic languages into experiences that could be perceived as strong, overwhelming, surreal, but unique.

www.chihimchik.com

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DIRECTIONS:

https://www.zhdk.ch/en/immersive-arts-space-10984/contact-10993

Room 1.J30
Förrlibuckstrasse 109

Please arrive 10 minutes prior to the start of the event.

Host or Publisher Melody Chua