The Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB) presents the 2025 C-LAB Sound Festival: DIVERSONICS, running from October 23 to November 30, 2025. Curated by C-LAB’s Taiwan Sound Lab, the festival focuses on contemporary music and sound creation, combining performances, installations, international forums, lectures, workshops, and masterclass sessions to create a cross-generational, multi-sensory celebration of sound art.
The program consists of 6 major sections with over 40 events, bringing together sound creators and performers from Germany, France, the United States, Argentina, Luxembourg, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam to showcase their works in Taiwan. Up to 70% of these works are new or re-creations, demonstrating the forward-thinking and diverse nature of sound art.
Contemporary Masters/Classics: Boulez, Chaplin, and Electroacoustic Convergence
The festival's featured section Contemporary Masters/Classics delivers several programs in their premiere across Asia or Taiwan, including Chaplin Factory conducted by Argentine composer Martin MATALON. Performed by a team of sound artists from France's Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM), the film combines the classic film footage of CHAPLIN with live electroacoustic performances for maximum impact in audio and video.
To commemorate the centenary of Pierre BOULEZ's birth, the festival hosts Boulez 100 in Taipei, performed by the New Music Workshop of Taipei National University of the Arts and directed by Associate Professor LIN Mei-Fang of the TNUA Department of Music. Echoing this theme within the festival are Boulez Project: A Journey through Solos by Studio Acht and Time Art Studio’s performance of electroacoustic works by French composer Philippe MANOURY, a figure deeply influenced by Boulez.
New Contemporary Music/Sounds: Embedding Local Memory in Technological Experimentation
The New Contemporary Music/Sounds section focuses on the creative output of a new generation, including Trompe-l’œil — Labyrinthe Sonore by the French contemporary trio 20° dans le noir, which uses expanded performance techniques and fusion of electronic sound to create audio illusions that challenge perception. Forest of Bamboos is based on a unique soundscape designed by musicians WU Wei and Alexis BASKIND for the 37-reed sheng, where listeners are situated inside the instrument, resonating with each breath of the player. The French sound research collective GRM will also offer performances, workshops, and lectures. EEL’s World - Live Electric Acoustic: Catadromous is based on the internationally acclaimed feature film EEL by Taiwanese director CHU Chun-Teng, performed by the film's music and sound designer SHENG and composer TÔN Thất An, presenting a sound variant of the film version. In collaboration with the Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs, the project will also be presented on Shezi Island as Shezihdao-Bardo and Catadromous, integrating local folk traditions into the audiovisual experience. LIU Wei-Chih’s Burst Forth II explores the ambiguity between illusion and perception through sound-led participation.
Co-creation and Dialogue between Musicians and AI, co-hosted by Shuanghsi Music Forum, presents compositional experiments by composers harnessing AI music creation tools. The Cutting-Edge Contemporary Music & Sounds features works by creators CHEN Chia-Hui, HUANG Ling-Hsuan, CHENG Dao-Yuan, WU Ping-Sheng, WANG Chih-Yun, XTRUX, HUANG Yung-Jen, CHEN Po-Hao, as well as Taiwan Sound Lab's TSANG Jing-Shiuan and WEN Hungkai.
The festival also showcases collaborations between Taiwan and Korea, including the improv concert Sound and Light by string and piano trio “리Trio” and liquid light projection artist BIO, and also the Electronic Night of Sound & Image: Taiwan x Korea I & II events, featuring an impressive lineup of sound artists from Taiwan and Korea including WANG Fujui and Gazaebal.
Boundless Cross-Domain Exploration: Sounds, Dance, and MR
This year’s festival introduces two major cross-domain sections, Dance & Music/Sounds and MR: New Soundscape, showcasing the combination of sound with body movement and visual technology. KINGDOM, created by CHAO Ting-Ting and performed by Anarchy Dance Theatre, combines VR and 3D scanning technology to construct a continuously collapsing and reconstructing digital environment using multiple screens and dancer body language. This section also incorporates street culture, introducing SoMO: Sound & Movement Experience curated by Melting Part, which uses "circles" as the core for creative experimentation to allow street dancers, musicians, and audiences to improvise, explore, and connect.
The Five Martial Gods of Wealth: Virtual-Real Fusion Performance will take place in the Black Box at the National Taiwan Science Education Center. A collaboration between the Department of Digital Multimedia Design at China University of Technology and Hoyi Dance Crew, the work fuses contemporary parade performance, street dance, and an interplay of real and virtual sound.
The MR: New Soundscape section features two new works co-produced with the National Taichung Theater. Cleo, created by Coco CHEN, inspired by the 1962 French film Cleo from 5 to 7, combines mixed reality (MR) with live dance. His Elsewhere, directed by HUNG An-Hsu, depicts a young person's yearning for and lost sense of belonging on his journey home, shifting viewers on VR devices between virtual and real scenes.
Installation Art and Immersive Experiences: Sound as Spatial Perception
The Sound Installation & Performance section includes the group exhibition Reverberation of Survival, featuring works of Between II: Dissonant/Consonant by HSU Studio, RECEITER(s) 2.0 by CHI Po-Hao, Roomba Calligraphy: A Poetic Machine Archaeology by Ken UENO, Tender Soul of Ocean: recall by WHYIXD and KLING KLANG KLONG, and DRIFT IN TIME, jointly created by ULTRACOMBOS and Cicada. Another collaborative work, Echo Chamber by CHEN Yi, WANG Chung-Kun, and WU Ping-Sheng, combines multichannel sound fields, laser optics, and AI sound synthesis to create a dynamically interactive audiovisual experience. This section also shows works produced in association with Taiwan Sound Lab and created off-site, including the solo exhibition Pavilion by Samson YOUNG at New Taipei City Art Museum and In the Abyss, Once Again as a Perceiver by CHANG Yen-Tzu, as exhibited at Nuit Blanche 2025.
From Inter-campus to Domestic and International Ties
The festival encourages connection between academia and creation in the Academy section with the participation of faculty and students from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University’s Institute of Music and National Taiwan Normal University’s Department of Music. Works presented include Interlaced Sounds and Images, Mysterious Sound Realm, and Echoes of Understanding, setting the stage for young creators towards the future of sound art. C-LAB also co-hosted the first-ever international forum with IRCAM in Taipei, accepting international submissions for the first time and gathering 25 sound creators from Germany, France, and Japan. This year’s festival also involves National Taipei University of the Arts, National Taiwan Science Education Center, New Taipei City Art Museum, Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs and other institutions to jointly extend contemporary sound art creation and performance platforms, establishing an innovative cross-domain ecosystem of art. For complete programming and registration information, please visit the C-LAB official website and social media platforms.