channels

channels is a multisensory performance exploring the intricate pathways of the body.

Lin understands us all to inhabit multiple bodies: ones made up of what we commonly think of as our physical body composed of its parts and organs, and others seemingly invisible, extending beyond the skin, taking the form of energetic fields and kindred relationships.

In her work, she generates connections within and between these bodies through the concept of qi 氣, networked technologies, and disabled embodiment. As materials for this exploration, she uses and amplifies the connective tissue of her own body as well as the care relationships that bond two or more bodies together.

The first movement, “channel 1,” investigates the internal pathways within the body, exploring the energetic channels of qi 氣 moving through the body as conceptualized by Chinese medicine, and the cyclical nature of the body living with chronic illness.

As both qi and this cycle are seemingly invisible to the eye, the artist examines the illegibility of the body in illness, pain, and healing, combining poetry with animations derived from what she calls her ongoing “soft data” archive.

“channel 2” explores external pathways of the body through movement and sound.

Using wired microphones attached to the artist’s moving body, electronic musician Despina samples the creaking and crackling sounds of the artist’s connective tissue in motion, transmuting the sounds into a generative soundscape.

The artist responds in turn, augmenting the music with movement sensors, channeling herself as an instrument. Reflecting the ever-changing body, each performance is unique, no soundscape ever the same.

Through deep listening, the duo engages in an interdependent, cyborgian feedback loop of generative music and dance.

The final movement, “channel 3,” invokes ways of being together across distance.

Choreographed and performed live with New Zealand/ Aotearoa based artist Pelenakeke Brown through means of virtual communication, the duo plays with the subjectivity of placehood.

Experimenting with presence and crip movement, Pelenakeke’s creates live line drawings, transforming the walls of the room into a pathway for communication and play.

A screen hangs overhead like a thought bubble. Poet danilo machado live describes the sound in the performance through speech-to-text software, invoking an access channel and yet another cyborgian loop.

Slowly, Pelenakeke emerges as a projection silhouette, and the duo dance together through describing their movements using audio description, utilizing description as a way to move together with and through the glitch stream.

This piece exists as an homage to the movements of the disabled community, whose connections are made, and togetherness found, without leaving the walls of one’s own room.

To the audience, Lin poses a series of questions: What channels exist within ourselves that connect us to ancestral ways of knowing? Can pain be a portal, and care a feedback loop?