This is a hybrid performance between live cinema and experimental theater, combining subconsciousness, dreams, and folk beliefs.
“…in the corner, there was a faint mound of dirt. A woman’s figure appears vaguely in the liminoid space of the living room, manifesting as a Doppelgänger and reflecting its formless body.”
The text incorporates two fragments from Clara Emery’s dream diary and several rural tales collected during a field trip to Chiayi Yizhu. It illustrates how, under animist superstition, the land and the gods of nature influence their inhabitants in intangible ways, sometimes even bringing disasters and death to mankind. Clara seeks to capture fragments of memories that exist between the real and the surreal through live lens language and text, reshaping Xu’s worldview within the dream. Simultaneously, Xu Chia-Chun translates all of these into experimental sounds, some of which are sampled from the Pigeon Whistle, a unique sonic custom of Yizhu, which serve as an invisible element that guides people to another dimension/otherworld.
XU Chia-Chun is an experimental musician, organizer and independent label manager. Xu began performing and creating Harsh Noise under the name ‘Berserk’ in 2015. Renowned for deafening volumes and a stylistic approach imbued with distinct aesthetics during live performances, Xu swiftly garnered recognition. In 2016, Kandala Records released a vinyl split album featuring Berserk alongside Japanoise legend Merzbow. Subsequently, the solo recordings were released by WV Sorcerer Productions in limited cassette. Noteworthy tours took him to the UK, Japan, and Malaysia before the project was temporarily suspended in 2020. Presently, Xu is a solo performer and creator, practicing the use of No-input Mixing Board and developing distinctive style in this technique, and dedicating his efforts to conducting workshops and nurturing the experimental music scene. He runs the avant-garde music label Karma Detonation Tapes, which serves as a platform for the regular release of noise and experimental music, promoting Taiwanese and global underground music. In March 2019, Xu pioneered the monthly outdoor guerrilla noise gig ‘Outer Pulsation’ in public underpasses and overpasses in Taipei.
Clara Emery uses large format photography and experimental film to capture fragments along the continuum of visible and invisible realms. Drawing from tales inherited from the Gila Wilderness, and traditions adopted in childhood from the Pacific Northwest and Taiwan, she weaves together history, memory, and superstition. Emery graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2019 with a degree in Photography and received her MFA in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023. She recently completed a Fulbright creative arts fellowship in Taiwan.