Virtual Theater: Roaming Transmigration

Alex Hungtai ZHANG ✕ Kuo-Heng TSENG

TYPE

New Media

DATE

2021.10.30 (Sat) - 11.14 (Sun)

VENUE

Virtual Venue

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I am in a foreign land crying in silence, unable to sing and pass on our old songs. It is the fate of the flowers to blossom and die, and it is ours to see our children and grandchildren alone at sea.
──Aphrodite Orchid

A virtual meditation on the overlapping contextual realities of the cosmical, historical, cultural, familial, and personal consciousness. An intergenerational digital sojourn into the many narratives that shape our current world. Perhaps as much an idea and will, geopolitical interests define this world through conquest and invasion.

The actions of the historical past carries forth onto the present and future, as each generation attempts to re/de/construct what came before.

Designed as a virtual transmutational process of consciousness through an endless cyclical loop, it questions the inherent nature of narratives we create that binds us in a perpetual self repeating stasis.

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GALLERY

Alex Zhang Hungtai

After retiring his project Dirty Beaches, Zhang has been focusing on explorations of improvised music, Free Jazz, and his new role as a composer. His newer compositions predominantly works with saxophone, synthesizers, percussion and piano, furthering his research on ritualistic music of liminality. Besides his solo work, he is also a member of a Free Jazz/experimental trio with Portugese minimalist/architect David Maranha, and Free Jazz Drummer Gabriel Ferrandini in Lisbon. Zhang currently works as a composer for film soundtracks, along with acting in independent films.

Kuo-Heng TSENG

Tseng Kuo-Heng is a musician from Taipei. He is lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter in the romantic pop band Sunset Rollercoaster. Growing up in the city’s suburbs, Kuo-Heng got an early introduction to reggae and classic rock from the YMCA English teachers that would stay at his family’s home. From there, he followed his teen-angst into Y2K-era nu metal, then discovered indie rock and found his way into his hometown’s underground scene, where he played bass in bands including shoegazers Boyz & Girl and dark industrial trio Forests. Forming Sunset Rollercoaster as a garage rock group in 2009, Kuo-Heng then honed his chops touring the world as a member of alternative Mandopop star Deserts Xuan’s backing band. Thinking more deeply about what he wanted as a musician, he brought Sunset Rollercoaster back from hiatus in 2015, transforming the band into a synth-glossed, professional unit inspired by R&B, funk, and city pop. Since then he’s led them on headline tours in Europe and North America, and to the top of festival bills around Asia. Whether Sunset Rollercoaster or other projects, everything Kuo-Heng does shares a few key elements: a laidback, tropical feel soaked up from his surroundings, sincerity mixed with a sly sense of humor (as found in his lovelorn English lyrics), and consummate musicianship.

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TAIWAN

CONTEMPORARY

ARTSFEST

2021 OCT-DEC

TOKYO | VIRTUAL | KAOHSIUNG

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