The Taiwan Sound Lab under Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB) presents Wandering 2022 from October 5 to October 23. The focus of the festival is on contemporary music and sound, including 14 programs presented over two weekends in four of C-LAB’s indoor performance spaces and on its West Lawn, as well as at the Taipei Performing Arts Center (TPAC). Interdisciplinary collaborations with the 2022 Taipei Poetry Festival and TPAC have led to the expansion of this festival’s performance spaces.
Composers, musicians, artists, and sound engineers from Taiwan, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Morocco, and the US have been invited to participate in the creation of audio-visual works, contemporary interpretations of classics, and independent music performances. C-LAB has long collaborated with France’s Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM). With the lifting of pandemic restrictions this year, IRCAM members are carrying out on-site exchanges with Taiwan’s production team and acoustic field design and tuning.
Wandering 2022 pays homage to contemporary and classic works while presenting the dynamism of today’s creators and works reflecting the zeitgeist. In French composer Pierre BOULEZ’S Anthèmes 2, violin and live electronic music are intertwined in timbre and sound, presenting the avant-garde nature of contemporary music. The electronic music section of German composer Karlheinze STOCKHAUSEN’s Strahlen has a very high technical threshold with an extremely delicate and complicated 10-part configuration. Opportunities to perform this work have only come following the composer’s death.
The Taiwan Sound Lab has also invited Swiss trumpeter Yannick BARMAN to perform the extremely difficult experimental work Metallics created by Monegasque composer Yan MARESZ through IRCAM’s research and development tools, presenting the unique tension that follows the spatialization of the trumpet’s sound. There are also contemporary music works performed by engineers from IRCAM and the Taiwan Sound Lab. As a follow-up to the 2021 collaboration with NanaFormosa Percussion Duo, Taiwanese composers CHEN Chia-Hui and YANG Tsu-Yao have been commissioned to create Imperceptibilité de l’agitation and Après Hashtag II. Premiering during the 2021 C-LAB Sound Festival’s outdoor opening ceremony, these two works have been released and recombined with dynamic images in a 49.4 channel immersive spatial audio field recorded version to present the detailed structure of the music and layered timbres. In addition, sound artists HUI Tak-Cheung and LIU Fang-Yi, who are participating in the Wandering #2 performance, share their works I Saw You in the Void and Corridor Under Construction, which have been tailored to the Taiwan Sound Lab’s Spatial Audio Field.
C-LAB is collaborating with the 2022 Taipei Poetry Festival for the first time, co-creating the experimental sound poem work Solemnity of Treasure Hill with Dark Eyes Ltd. Based on a set of experimental poems on Taiwan’s history entitled Solemnity of Treasure Hill by poet YEN Hung-Ya, sound artist Yenting HSU has developed an immersive experience in the Spatial Audio Field using human voices, recordings, and electronic sound in an avant-garde attempt to combine literature and technology. TimeArt Studio has brought together An Unknown Journey of Sound: The Music Is Happening program, which is based on a collaboration between Taiwan and Germany’s Broken Frames Syndicate contemporary music ensemble, to explore how sound and messages can come to life and be conveyed though musical performances.
No effort was spared in discovering creative talent for Wandering 2022. The Taiwan Sound Lab has collaborated with the NYCU Institute of Music to introduce selected works from an international electronic music competition initiated by Paris-based TMPC and co-organized by Taiwan, Japan, and France, during the Sound Talks—Cinema for Ears program, accompanied by works of important composers such as French electronic music maestro Christian ELOY to show the sound aesthetics of different generations. The instrumental and electronic works of five young composers from the Music Department of National Taiwan Normal University are also performed in this festival.
One of the highlights of the festival is the series of independent music performances taking place on the stage on C-LAB’s West Lawn over three consecutive nights from October 14 to October 16. Lilium, Hormone Boys with sound artist Jared XU, i'mdifficult, and L8ching perform works they specially remixed and designed for this rare outdoor four-channel surround sound environment, which are a must for music fans. Live performances of six artists and groups including CHENG Ko-Chun (Sonic Deadhorse) are curated by the avant-garde Lacking Sound Festival and also planned for the West Lawn. The Experimental Film and Sound program features a work by WU Tzu-An, who received a Taipei Art Awards Honorable Mention, and a video and sound collision experiment by SANSEI, who appeared at the Taipei Fringe Festival. CREATORS Sound Off Up-and-Coming Creators Residency Program composer HUANG Chi-Yen and sound artist CHENG Dao-Yuan have co-created Polymorph, which they perform together to explore the intersection of contemporary music and sound art. Those interested in contemporary works should not miss out on any of these shows.
During the 2021 C-LAB Sound Festival, the experimental version of The Insomnia Sketchbook, co-produced by Taiwan Sound Lab and IRCAM, was presented. At Wandering 2022, the 2022 version is to be shown at the newly completed TPAC. IRCAM sound designers and audio field designers have arrived in Taiwan from France to make adjustments on-site and enable the revisiting of boundaries between dreamscapes and reality. Also, the VR work Chroma: A Derek Jarman Project launched by Taiwan Sound Lab in 2020 is redesigned in terms of sound stage and will be on the lineup of this festival as well.
During the Wandering 2022, music and sound creation intersects and collides. Through a series of performances, various genres of music and sound creation initiate dialogues in specially designed spaces, serving to expand the diversity of audio field sensory experiences.
▍Wandering 2022
Date｜2022.10.05 (Wed.) － 10.23(Sun.)
Venue｜C-LAB (Spatial Audio Field at Taiwan Sound Lab, 1F & Gray Box of Art Space I, Art Space IV, West Lawn), Taipei Performing Arts Center
Supervisor｜the Ministry of Culture
Organizer｜Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB)
Curation｜Taiwan Sound Lab, IRCAM
Executor｜Taiwan Sound Lab
Sponsor of Audio Engineering｜Feblow Production
Co-organizer｜Taipei Performing Arts Center, Alliance Française de Taïwan, TimeArt Studio, NYCU Institute of Music, National Taiwan Normal University, Lacking Sound Festival
Production Team of The Insomnia Sketchbook｜LuxuryLogico
Official Hotel｜MGH Mitsui Garden Hotel Taipei Zhongxiao