Monthly Archives: April 2017

mattin on improvisation

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“Today, our crisis is not only an economic one but also a cultural one. If there is a practice that should acknowledge this, and be able to take this crisis as potential in its extreme fragility, it is improvisation. Out of this it will need to generate a form of agency that goes beyond the improviser’s self. It could resemble the general intellect that Théorie Communiste mentions, one that constantly questions its own parameters and undermines its own conventions without shying away from confrontation. Rather than experimenting with instruments it would be experimenting with our own selves, material conditions and broader social relations. This negative improvisation would accelerate situations to the point of mirroring our impossibilities and our limitations by producing situations where one is confronted with the negativity of our times. Out of this negativity this improvisation will try to generate a form of agency that would link freedom with collective rationality rather than with individual expression.”

—Mattin, “Improvisation and Communization”. In Marysia Lewandowska and Laurel Ptak (eds.), Undoing Property? (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013), pp.53–67.

Critical Music 3: Interview with Ake

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Critical Music series: This series of posts focuses on individuals, groups, or organisations that have played notable roles in the history of critical music practices in China. These practices appear in many different guises, often related to concepts such as “experimental music” or “sound art”, although neither term is entirely satisfactory in describing the practices which often exist in many hybrid forms. My adoption of the term “critical music” (following the writings of G Douglas Barrett) attempts to avoid the limitations of these terms, while highlighting the active nature of the sound component of the practices. These posts will primarily take the form of interviews, each one aiming to place the subject within the general history of critical music practices in China, and contextualise their current practice within their overall development.

Welcome to the third interview in this series. Today I am very happy to be able to publish an interview with Ake 阿科, the Beijing-based experimental musician. Ake is a young (born in 1990), self-taught artist, who has only been performing for a couple of years but has become a regular participant in experimental music events in the city. While initially working with violin drones, she has recently started investigating manipulated field recording. I interviewed Ake because I think she represents a new generation of artists in China whose practice is developing within a relatively stable environment for autonomous experimental work, an environment that does not depend on the “regular” music scene to provide it with outlets and reasons to exist.

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Critical Music 2: Interview with Colin Siyuan Chinnery (part 2)

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Welcome to part two of the second interview in this series on critical music, talking with Colin Siyuan Chinnery. Part one can be found here. This final part will cover Colin’s more recent activities in relation to sound: his involvement with the Shijia Hutong Museum and the development of the Sound Museum, an entity investigating and exploiting the full potential of sound.

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Critical Music 2: Interview with Colin Siyuan Chinnery (part 1)

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Critical Music series: This series of posts focuses on individuals, groups, or organisations that have played notable roles in the history of critical music practices in China. These practices appear in many different guises, often related to concepts such as “experimental music” or “sound art”, although neither term is entirely satisfactory in describing the practices which often exist in many hybrid forms. My adoption of the term “critical music” (following the writings of G Douglas Barrett) attempts to avoid the limitations of these terms, while highlighting the active nature of the sound component of the practices. These posts will primarily take the form of interviews, each one aiming to place the subject within the general history of critical music practices in China, and contextualise their current practice within their overall development.

Welcome to the second interview in this series. Today I am honoured to publish the first part of an interview with Colin Siyuan Chinnery, the Beijing-based artist, curator, musician, and writer. In the early ’90s Colin and his band Xue Wei were part of the evolving music scene in Beijing, as artists pushed up against the boundaries of the then dominant rock ‘n’ roll. His interest in experimental music later led to his initiating the influential Sound and the City project with the British Council, which saw four experimental musicians travelling from the UK to Beijing to create sound projects there. The second part of this interview (to follow) will cover his more recent activities: his involvement with the Shijia Hutong Museum and the development of the Sound Museum, an entity investigating and exploiting the wider potential of sound.

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