Distant Pairs: Delia Beatriz (DEBIT) & Flora Yin Wong
Notes from Delia Beatriz & Flora Yin Wong
Based off a mutual connection to the sea and bodies of water, as well as essentially being seperated by the Atlantic Ocean, the duo's long distance collaboration was formed around the ideas of sentience within the ever unknowable and powerful element - from cultural references like Dr Masaru Emoto's water experiments to the ocean in Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, and Lao Tzu's water paradox: "Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid... This is another paradox: what is soft is strong."
A figurative water motif in sound and composition. The different physical states of water. The ocean as a sentient being. A single drop. The whole surface of the earth. Like, as mass.
Surface tension. a glass filled to the top, but it doesn’t spill.
almost going somewhere,
At what point do two drops become a single one? What is that exact moment? Chinese philosophy. Water is inherently abstract; it fits and molds to any object. It emulates & fills its vessel, but it never be it.
You have to be soft to be strong.
Mist, condensation. Dew. Drowning. The stature of a tide. After all waves are a sequence of time
Wave 1a
wave 2
snowflakes respond to sound, but its not necessarily a dance.
Thursday, October 20th at 8pm ET, ISSUE is pleased to stream the debut collaborative presentation between New York-based producer and composer Delia Beatriz (DEBIT) and London-based sound artist and writer Flora Yin Wong. This commissioned work will be the first ever collaboration between these two artists and their ISSUE premiere, with DEBIT and Flora Yin Wong both had recent solo work championed by the influential UK label Modern Love. The duo’s new work will stream for free on ISSUE’s site.
Born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico before her family relocated to Texas, Delia Beatriz (DEBIT) has long straddled two distinct worlds. As a DJ, her selections burn the unmistakable swing of Latin club music into ironclad techno frameworks, and as a producer and composer, she drifts seamlessly from avant-garde and drone modes into experimental dance music without hesitation. Beatriz has been performing and recording since 2009 while she was studying in Providence, Rhode Island, soaking up the city's fertile DIY noise scene, and taking extracurricular classes on synthesis. Later on, while living in Argentina, she attended workshops on circuit bending, and learned to make her own oscillators and effects pedals. Her next phase was triggered by a move to New York City, where she DJed regularly in the local dance scene and established the DEBIT moniker. Her debut album “Animus” was released in 2018 by Mexico City collective N.A.A.F.I., and wove pneumatic club sounds with melancholy ambience. She swiftly followed it up with “Love Discipline,” a beatless opera of futuristic, cinematic and sinister soundworks. While she was studying a graduate degree in Music Technology at NYU, Beatriz assembled “System,” an EP solidifying the duality of her unique approach, reconstructing tribal guarachero music using sounds snatched from industrial techno with collaborations from Teklife's DJ Earl and tribal innovator Javier Estrada. In 2022, Beatriz released her sophomore album “The Long Count,” an ambitious electroacoustic tome that delves into the past to peer into the future. Using research into Mayan wind instruments, Beatriz developed digital instruments and harnessed machine learning to compose music that feels completely out of time. The album was released on legendary British imprint Modern Love in February, receiving critical acclaim from DJ Mag, MixMag, Pitchfork, Dazed, Resident Advisor, Crack Magazine among many others, while also being named Global Album of the Month by The Guardian.
Flora Yin Wong is an experimental sound artist and writer from London, UK. Her work incorporates field recordings and early instruments such as singing bowls, yangqin and kemence, with electronic processing software, as well as text-based storytelling and abstraction. In October 2020, her debut album was released on Modern Love records as a double LP vinyl. Prior to that, she had worked with multi-disciplinary Berlin label PAN (Mark Leckey, Florian Hecker, Alexandra Domanovic) on the ambient ‘mono no aware’ compilation. Her tape EP 'City God’ on New York imprint PTP, was inspired by the Daoist tradition of tutelary deities and the afterlife. She has performed live at Fondation Beyeler Basel, MACRO Roma, Volksbühne Theatre Berlin, Palais de Tokyo, V&A Museum, Somerset House, MUTEK Peru, Buenos Aires and Montreal, New York’s ISSUE Project Room, Triennale Milano, Semibreve Portugal, King’s Place, and Cafe OTO London, as well as clubs like Berghain, SOTO Kyoto, WWWB Tokyo, as well as Kyiv, Antwerp, Bratislava, Rotterdam, Vienna, Switzerland, Brussels, Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Atonal and 3HD Festivals in Berlin, FIBER Festival Amsterdam, and Wiener Festwochen in Vienna. Her debut book titled ‘Liturgy’ was released in July 2021 on New York’s Primary Information—exploring abstract fiction and non-fiction, interlinking themes like religion, modern mythology, paradoxes, and delusions.
During the Fall, 2022 ISSUE is continuing to commission artists as part of the Distant Pairs series, producing collaborative work at a time when the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has drastically impacted their ability to travel and perform, and altered the nature of collective work and performance. Pairing artists in disparate locations who cannot work together in “traditional” ways, the Distant Pairs series examines the collaborative process, methods of working, and partnership amidst these constrained conditions.
Full Distant Pairs Series Schedule*
Irmin Schmidt & Leah Singer: Wednesday, October 19th
DEBIT & Flora Yin-Wong: Thursday, October 20th
James Fei & Yan Jun: Wednesday, October 26th
Lucy Railton & Max Eilbacher: Thursday, October 27th - Presented online and as an ISSUE Member Event at Fridman Gallery
*All Times 8pm ET
