Artist, composer and improvisor C. Spencer Yeh opens his 2015 ISSUE Project Room residency with a solo performance at Artists Space Books & Talks. Presented in collaboration with Primary Information, the event celebrates the recent release of Solo Voice I – X (April 2015), Yeh’s first LP devoted entirely to the voice. Strategies from the recorded document will be used as guidelines and a starting point for a new solo improvisation.
“It's building on the record as a document, using it as a springboard for further exploration– playing against an organized and recorded artifact of my voice as another element, whether held conceptually, in memory, or concretely as source material. With the use of electronics, which gets increasingly complicated in my set-up, I find I am still holding onto qualities of working with voice that are interesting to me.
One, using amplification as a microscope, and having the electronics only enhance what is there naturally to begin with. That is, having the sounds still sound like the sounds, and not masked by effects boxes. This is particularly important as I had moved from ‘outward’ vocal sounds to increasingly ‘inward’ smaller sounds.
Two, using time-based electronics like samplers and loopers that can play with the duration of a looped phrase. I've been exploring the limit at which a phrase could no longer register as language– where vocalizations’ legibility disappears and becomes texture rather than communication. So oftentimes I'll perform with a loop in mind multiple times before I hit sample to repeat; to mimic a repetitive machine before the actual machine does that task.”
— C Spencer Yeh
C. Spencer Yeh is recognized for his interdisciplinary activities and collaborations as an artist and composer, as well as his music project Burning Star Core. Recent presentations of work include "The Companion" at the Liverpool Biennial, "Modern Mondays" at MoMA, "In Tones From Light to Dark" at Performa 13, "Synth Nights" at The Kitchen, "Excursus IV" at the ICA Philadelphia, "Great Tricks From Your Future" at D-CAF in Cairo Egypt, Borderline Festival in Athens Greece, Kinomuzeum at Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw Poland, LAMPO at the Renaissance Society Chicago IL, the Pérez Art Museum in Miami FL, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston TX, and a Jerome Foundation Commission from Roulette Intermedium. Yeh also collaborated with Triple Canopy for their contribution to the Whitney Biennial in 2014. He is a 2015 Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room.
Yeh also volunteers as a programmer and trailer editor for Spectacle Theater in Brooklyn NY. He recently co-organized and coordinated Spectacle’s residency as part of the Museum of Arts and Design’s NYC Makers: A MAD Biennial. His video works are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix. He is also a contributing editor to BOMB magazine.
