Time is still and we are in revolution

Yan Jun (China) and Yuen Chee Wai (Singapore)
Time is still and we are in revolution
Live performance streamed through LCD screens, approx. 30 min.

Saturday, 16 September 2023
3:30pm – 4:15pm
NTU CCA Singapore Seminar Room
37 Malan Road, #01-04
Singapore 109452

Performance will start on time.
Admission is free on a first-come first-served basis.

Isn’t there a paradox in any revolution in that they circle back as they move forward? A revolving disc spins the two performers, together with their respective environments and audiences, at the same speed across vast geopolitical distances: an apartment in Bejing (Yan Jun) and former military barracks converted into artist studios in Singapore (Yuen Chee Wai). Set in a mysterious code, Time is still and we are in revolution is an experiment in remote improvisation made of electronics and vocals, cyclical contacts and recurring departures.

Time is still and we are in revolution results from an experimental working methodology developed by Yan Jun and Yuen Chee Wai. The first outcome of this ongoing collaboration, The Riddle of the Machine, was presented at the Trans-Southeast Asia Triennial Research Exhibition Series Review, Guangzhou, China, earlier in 2023.

BIOGRAPHIES

Yuen Chee Wai (Singapore) is a musician, artist, designer, and curator. Often inspired by perspectives glimpsed through the filmic eye and photographic lens, Yuen’s stylistic oeuvre in improvised music is marked by internalised reflections on memory and loss, invisibility and indeterminacy. His latest research interests are in mycology and caves. In 2008, together with Otomo Yoshihide (Japan), Ryu Hankil (South Korea), and Yan Jun (China), he formed FEN (Far East Network), an improvised music unit focusing on the multifaceted networks and collaborations between musicians and artists in Asian countries. He is also a member of The Observatory, in which he plays guitar, synth, and electronics. He tours extensively with FEN and The Observatory, and has presented at MIMI Festival, Lausanne Underground Music and Film Festival, All Ears Festival, Ftarri Festival, Gwangju Biennale and CTM Festival. Yuen was an Artist-in-Residence with NTU CCA Singapore in Cycle 8.

Yan Jun (China) is a musician and poet based in Beijing. His works involve electronics, feedback, site-specific installations, and noise. His improvisation sets follow the unstable relationship between microphones, speakers, the space and his body movement, to create subtle and unstable sound. He is a member of FEN (FarEastNetwork), Tea Rockers Quintet and Impro Committee, and has toured in the US, Australia, Europe and Asia. He has performed at Shanghai Biennale and received an honorary mention by Ars Electronica (Austria), and is the founder of Sub Jam label/organization. As a writer he has published and translated several books and poetry collections and attended the Rotterdam International Poetry Festival, and Berlin International Poetry Festival. Yan Jun was an Artist-in-Residence with NTU CCA Singapore in Cycle 2.