Remy Siu ( 蕭逸南 ) is a composer and new media artist based in Vancouver, BC. Recently, his work has involved the construction of automated and variable performance apparatuses that employ light, sound, software, and the body. He is interested in creating friction and stakes between the performer, the interface, and the system through the use of game mechanics and failure. His output spans chamber music, dance, theatre, installations, and audio-visual work.
As stated above, Sui aims to use pre-programmed technology that has unpredictable variables in order to create friction between his 'artistic tools' and the performer. This means that even though there is a considerable amount of pre-production, the performance or 'way' has large amounts of unpredictability. The audience experiences the struggle between machine and artist.
We will now look more closely at one particular piece. When watching, try to keep in mind our three points of investigation:
We will now look more closely at one particular piece. When watching, try to keep in mind our three points of investigation:
- Art is not a thing; it is a way
- Art also lies in the creation of our own senses
- Artistic tools can help artists portray, experience or portray and experience their reality
To help you interpret this piece, here is a description taken from Siu's website.
“Foxconn Frequency (no.2) — for one visibly Chinese performer”investigates the consequences of disconnecting action and labour from sound. Using the poetry of Xu Lizhi (许立志)—a former Foxconn worker—as a structural blueprint to move through a series of dictations and testings, the piece seeks to create a space for failure and stakes. The most obvious and clear negation is the purposeful disconnection between the musician and her instrument. The use of technology here is meant to disrupt, instead of enable. To create a space of new possibilities through subtraction.
For the core of the piece, a system was devised to "test" the performer's competency with multiple exercises. This system calls these exercises (or “gestures”) differently every performance, keeping the performer present and engaged through-out the piece. The performer must execute these gestures successfully under shifting parameters that determine overall difficulty before progressing forward. This creates a scenario for the player to fail. While traditional scores have attempted difficulty, a software-driven system allows for new permutations. The generative and responsive nature of the system subverts any attempt for the performer to prepare. The struggle becomes real and perceptible, a part of the piece as it unfolds.
There are many reasons for the restriction of "one visibly Chinese performer." In music composition, we often specify instruments (e.g for solo violin), but almost never the body itself. By making this distinction, it is my intention to draw focus to the performer's identity, to engage the eyes as well as the ears, and to bring attention to the “extra-musical,” shifting the mode of audience perception to multiple modalities.
It felt necessary to specify race when confronting the narratives of Foxconn and Xu Lizhi's poetry, as it is the Chinese body at work. The piano, an iconic Western object, is an equal presence to the body, acting as the main resonator and origin of most sounds. They are separated by physical distance, allowing us to see these two entities as separate, and not together (as in most concert music), and to explore this reconfigured space.
Additional Press: (from the pianists, Vicky Chow, point of view)
San Francisco Classical Voice
Georgia Straight
The artistic tools in Foxconn Frequency (no.2) are computers, software (MaxMsp and Isadora), projectors, a MIDI controller, a disklaviar piano and the performer (Vicky Chow). It might be odd to consider Chow as an artistic tool; however, this is not unique to this piece. For instance, the players in a traditional classical music compositions are, to the composer, objects or tools of expression.
Additional Works