Desert Woman
Granted by Art and Media Department, Aalto University
Performances:
2/5/2024 Odeion Screening Auditorium, Aalto University
12/5/2024 Yö Galleria, Helsinki
Link to Dissertation
Audience responses have highlighted the deep resonance and emotional immersion created through the interplay of pure text and sound, revealing the capacity of auditory performance to materialize the invisible: memory, emotion, and political subjectivity. This work challenges traditional discourse frameworks by proposing a nonlinear, sonic mode of storytelling that empowers marginalized voices and reframes historical experience.
Through a comparative lens of Eastern and Western thought, this project offers a new perspective on the relationship between technology, cultural memory, and performativity. The use of sound art is positioned not as a tool, but as a mode of philosophical inquiry and aesthetic resistance, carving out a liminal space for presence, perception, and transformation.
Tools: Ableton Live, Touchdesigner, Midi System
Techniques: Literary Analysis，Soundscape Design, Composition, Synesthesia Creation
This work explores the intersection of sound, literature, and performativity through an immersive multimedia performance based on the life and writings of Taiwanese author Sanmao. It engages with the political, emotional, and existential dimensions of text by transforming literary narratives into dynamic sonic experiences.
Grounded in the aesthetic regime theory of Jacques Rancière and Judith Butler’s concept of performative politics, and informed by Martin Heidegger’s reflections on being alongside Laozi’s Daoist philosophy of “knowing the white, yet dwelling in the black,” this project investigates how sound can serve as a medium of embodied existence within historical and cultural landscapes.Utilizing tools such as TouchDesigner, Ableton Live, and AI voice models, a custom text-sonification system was developed based on grammatical structure, emotional tone, and contextual semantics. Drawing from Sanmao’s vivid scenographic imagery, psychological depth, and subtle political metaphors, the project constructs a soundscape methodology that gives voice to the existential and affective layers of literature.
The performance unfolds in five distinct scenes, each designed with its own sonic atmosphere and narrative structure, tracing the subject’s search for authenticity in states of spiritual displacement. Here, sound becomes a philosophical agent—activating imagination, evoking memory, and destabilizing linear temporality through what is defined as a “hyper-narrative” structure.
12/5/2024 Yö Galleria, Helsinki
2/5/2024 Odeion Screening Auditorium, Aalto University