The festival opens with Karen Yu (HK) activating Kenny Wong’s (HK) installation “The Canvas of Resonance,” performing a work written by composer Zihua Tan. Yu, a percussionist, activates the installation’s thunder sheets, refreshing our perspective on an object of fixed identity. This performance is followed by award-winning composer and sound artist Adam Basanta (CAN) performing a set from his new album, “Intricate Connections Formed Without Touch.” Basanta explores a timbral and stylistic spectrum emerging from a single acoustic guitar improvisation. Cut, sliced, re-arranged and folded-over, he creates the vast majority of timbral material heard through a series of laptop improvisations.

VVzela Kook (HK/CHINA) and Line Katcho (CAN) offer up an audio-visual feast, each performing intricately crafted works for sound and screen. Katcho’s “Immortelle”-
premiered during MUTEK Montreal 2018-binds light and sound in constant, dramatic metamorphosis as she explores shifting relationships between image and music and between humans and our environments. Vvzela Kook will expand on her series “Confidential Records.” These works travel to the year 2047 and posits a fictional timeline where Kowloon Walled City was never demolished, but hidden underground, developing into a complex metropolis rivaling those seen in cyberpunk films such as “Blade Runner” and “Ghost in the Shell.”

Alex Yiu (HK) and respectfulchild (CAN) perform multi-channel sets featuring live violin. Both artists have mediated their instrument through real-time processing. Respectfulchild plucks, loops, and sings, building experimental ambient soundscapes through slow progressions of meticulous improvisation. Alex Yiu controls a multitude of synthesizers with his MIDI violin, combining minimalist musical material with underground beats. A venture into sound both lush and raw.

Considered and delicate sounds, machine and natural processes; Fiona Lee (HK) and Alexandra Spence (AUS) complement one another in an evening exploring augmented improvisation and generative possibility. Lee has devised kinetic sound generators through the use of robotic brushes. These small machines move and sound with a mind of their own. Spence presents a new multi-channel work employing an array of sound sources: field recordings, no-input mixer, sine tones, amplified objects, and more.

Fresh Forms returns to the festival, focusing on young and emerging local talent. Lee Cheng (HK) leads iLOrk, a laptop ensemble, presenting new work. Artists from CMHK’s education initiative, “Sound Brood,” will also take the stage, showing their projects developed during summer camp.

Sudhee Liao (HK/SINGAPORE) and Nancy Tam (CAN) activate the space with sound, light, and their own bodies. Both artists bring a team of multi-disciplinary collaborators from experimental theatre and contemporary dance to offer a full sensory experience. Liao’s “Hermetic Diode,” is a collaboration with visual artist Andrew Luk (HK), playing with elements of proximity and intimacy between performers and audience. Tam’s “Walking at Night By Myself” poetically examines how we individuate in contemporary society. The work utilizes “Moire,” a phenomenon where the human brain involuntarily perceives a third unpredictable pattern while observing two repetitive misaligned grids superimposed on one another. These patterns are projected onto the human body, compressing and decompressing with every move and breath.