Audio-Visual & Music Programme

Bob Ostertag (USA) has published dozens of CDs of music, two movies, two DVDs, and four books. His writings on contemporary politics have been published on every continent and in many languages. Electronic instruments of his own design are at the cutting edge of both music and video performance technology. He has performed at music, film, and multi-media festivals around the globe. His radically diverse collaborators include the Kronos Quartet, avant garder John Zorn, heavy metal star Mike Patton, jazz great Anthony Braxton, punk rocker Lynn Breedlove, transgender diva Justin Viviane Bond, Quebecois film maker Pierre Hébert, and others. He is rumored to have connections to the shadowy media guerrilla group The Yes Men. In March 2006 Ostertag made all of his recordings to which he owns the rights available as free digital downloads under a Creative Commons license.

Takuro Mizuta Lippit (aka dj sniff) is a Japanese musician and curator in the field of experimental electronic arts and improvised music. His musical work builds upon a distinct practice that combines DJing, instrument design, and free improvisation. He has performed internationally at various venues and festivals including CTM Berlin, Warsaw Autumn, Japan Society NYC, BAC Beirut, Jazz em Agosto Lisbon, Platforma Moscow, YCAM Yamaguchi, BACC Bangkok, Playfreely Singapore, and Ruangrupa Jakarta. He has released 12 DJ mixes and 4 albums, which includes collaborations with Evan Parker, Otomo Yoshihide, Martin Tetreault, and Paul Hubweber. During his appointment as Artistic Director of STEIM (2007 – 2012) in Amsterdam, he has curated and produced over 100 projects including large-scale international festivals and award winning art works. Since 2014, he is Co-Director of Ensembles Asia / Asian Music Network. He is currently based in Hong Kong where he is Visiting Assistant Professor at City University of Hong Kong School of Creative Media.

Game of Patience is one of the few groups in South East Asia region dedicated solely to the creation of free improvised music. Unconstrained by any given tradition, they draw influence and techniques from both the Asian and Western experimental music traditions. Performing with a focused intensity complimented by mercurial group interplay, they create sharp sweeping shards of improvised noise-jazz, creating textures combining extended techniques and electronics with elements of free jazz, electroacoustic composition and free improv. The group consists of Malaysian saxophonist Yong Yandsen with the Singapore based rhythm section consisting of Scottish-Australian drummer Darren Moore and Irish-American contrabass player and electronic musician Brian O’Reilly.

GOH Lee Kwang is internationally recognized sound & new media artist from Malaysia. He has created sound installations, sonic-visual interactive installations, single channel video, multi-channels video, electro-acoustic improvised music performance, tape music, composition for radio broadcast and soundtrack for theater / dance / independent movie. Goh’s works focus on the various possibility of both realistic & abstract, crossing the boundaries of digital & analog, electronic & acoustic, go beyond language, allowing audiences to experience the work directly, and in their own personal way. Most of his installation also operating interactively with the audience/viewer.

HKPT is an improvised music duo — with the occasional guest member or two — with a love for the weirder, noisier and more abrasive side of the sound spectrum. Working chiefly with electronic and electro-acoustic sounds, the core duo of Azzief (Jerk Kerouac, ZDICM) and Sudarshan (Larry Clark, ex-Think! Tadpole! Think!) record and perform anything from minimal improvised electronics to screeching harsh noise workouts and anything in between. Bring earplugs.

Jaap Blonk (born 1953 in Woerden, Holland) is a self-taught composer, performer and poet. For almost two decades the voice was his main means for the discovery and development of new sounds. From around the year 2000 on Blonk started work with electronics and a research of the possibilities of algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual animation and poetry. As a vocalist, Jaap Blonk is unique for his powerful stage presence and almost childlike freedom in improvisation, combined with a keen grasp of structure. Besides working as a soloist, he collaborated with many musicians and ensembles in the field of contemporary and improvised music, like Maja Ratkje, Mats Gustafsson, Joan La Barbara, The Ex, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the Ebony Band. He premiered several compositions by the German composer Carola Bauckholt, including a piece for voice and orchestra. A solo voice piece was commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2002. On several occasions he collaborated with visual computer artist Golan Levin.

Born in Beppu, far from the bigger cities in Japan, Katsura Yamauchi was until recently relatively unknown, but has now shown himself to be one of the most unique musicians in Japan. Not until 2002 did he quit his regular job to dedicate himself fully to music. He had developed his own original style, mixing improvisation and minimalism with melodic elements. His music called SALMO SAX is at the same time challenging and easily accessible, unrecognizable and beautiful. Yamauchi has released several solo CDs and recorded with Michel Doneda, Gunter Muller, Norbert Möslang, Jason Kahn, Toshimaru Nakamura, amongst others.

KOK Siew-Wai is an improvised vocalist, video artist and independent artist-organizer from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She explores and experiments with the human voice in various ways. Siew-Wai has performed in festivals such as Choppa Eclectic Improvised Music Festival 2008 (Singapore), Kuala Lumpur Contemporary Music Festival 2009, E-Poetry Festival 2011 (USA), Playfreely Festival 2015 (Singapore), and recently joined the Ensemble Asia led by Otomo Yoshihide at Asian Meeting Festival (Japan) and RRRec Fest (Indonesia).

From Germany, Max Riefer founded his first new music ensemble at the age of 18. Currently, he is the percussionist with Inverspace (Switzerland) and Zero Crossing (Germany/Singapore). He has also played with renowned groups like Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt) or Zeitkratzer (Berlin). Max Riefer is “Chair of Percussion Studies” at UiTM Faculty of Music/Malaysia. Previously, he was lecturer on the percussion faculty at Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland. Furthermore, he had been invited as guest lecturer at the Birmingham Conservatoire (UK); Toho Gakuen School of Music; Tokyo Ongaku Daigaku (Japan) or the National University of Singapore amongst others. Performances at international festivals including “MaerzMusik” (Berlin), “Tokyo Experimental Festival” (Japan), “Wien Modern” (Austria), or “two days and two nights of new music” (Odessa, Ukraine).

Peter Ivan Edwards was born in New York and studied composition at Northwestern University; the University of California, San Diego; and the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany. He creates compositions on his own and in collaboration with other musicians. In his own works, he explores sound as a means to articulate energy, shape, narrative, and perspective. He employs computer-assisted and algorithmic means in the development of these works. His works have been performed at festivals including Darmstadt Summer Courses (Germany), MATA Festival (New York), Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Wien Modern (Austria), and June in Buffalo (New York). As a member of Zero Crossing (2013-present), a percussion and electronics duo, Edwards has performed on the Spectra 2014 Electronic Music Festival (Malaysia) and the 40 Jahre Freiburger Schlagzeugensemble Jubiläumsveranstalung (Germany).

Sachiko M is avant-garde improvisation musician from Japan, who’s known for her original performance style with test sinewaves from electric instruments. While performing at International music festivals and concerts around the world, she had taken part in more than 100 albums including solo. In 2011, Sachiko M had created sound installation “I’m Here – shortstay” in Singapore, which was brought back home later to tour 6 alternative spaces in Japan. The piece was compiled into a photo slide archive piece FINAL CALL in 2014. Her recent works indicates the expansion of her field of work from music performance: compiling photography book, composition of a song for NHK’s TV drama series “Ama-chan”, publishing autobiogrpahy, choreography for Bon Odori, among others. She was awarded the Ars Electronica Golden Nica prize digital music category in 2003 and “55th The Japan Record awards”, the Best Composition category in 2013. Sachiko M is the project director of Asian Sounds Research /Japan foundation Asia center, ENSEMBLES ASIA. (Photo by Mieko Matsumoto)

*Sachiko M will perform a solo set with video “Silent Movie With Silent Sounds”, a short documentary of a performance featuring Kok Siew-Wai, Tadashi Yonago and herself, with the same title, as part of the “OPEN GATE” exhibition at Hin Bus Art Depot in Penang in June 2015. Video by Yuki Higuchi.

Sudarshan Chandra Kumar is a musician from Malaysia. He has contributed vocals and live electronics to bands such as HKPT, T!T!T!, and Takdir. His live setup is comprised of loopers, synths and effects pedals which are used to create improvised soundscapes.

WONG Eng Leong is a visual artist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He received his Diploma in Fine Art majoring in painting from Malaysia Institute of Art in 2003. His works take on multiple forms such as painting, drawing, installation, video and performance. As a contemporary multi disciplinary artist, his work often deals with political and social issues. His work has been showcased at festival, galleries and privates spaces since 2000. He received Eng Tay Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2002 – 2005, he was selected for a two and a half year grant ‘Talent for the World’. He was then awarded the Krishen Jit Astro Fund for an audio visual performance project ‘The Rain Project’ in 2008 – 2009. Wong is also one of the founders of Findars Artists Collective and one of the founders of Findars space.

YONG Yandsen is an improvised saxophonist and artist-organizer from Malaysia. He has played at the Kuala Lumpur Contemporary Music Festival, Mosaic Festival Singapore, Choppa Eclectic Improvised Music Festival, Turn Around Free Jazz & Improvisation Festival amongst others. Yandsen, together with Darren Moore and Brian O’Reily, form an improvised trio called Game of Patience. They have toured to Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. In 2015, they release their debut album “Trial and Error” on Herbal International label in Malaysia, and self release debut LP “The Bad Sleep Well”. Yandsen is the curator of the monthly improvised music and performance series in Kuala Lumpur since May 2014, “Serious Play Improv Lab (SPIL)”, which is one of KLEX’s projects.