Chi Him Chik

Oscillating and morphing between practices, media, and identities, Hong Kong media

artist and performer Chi Him Chik draws inspirations from the reflections of conflicts,

dilemma, pain, and chaos of personal, social, and political experiences and events, while

combining skills, knowledges, and aesthetics from different fields/genres including and

transforming his spectrum of artistic languages into performative experiences which one

might find overwhelming, surreal, but unique.

Chaos becomes his color, and hoarse becomes his voice.

For more information, please visit: www.chihimchik.com

 

Aiii_v1.966875695106328∅ is an immersive performative ritual inspired by Wataru Tsurumi's

Complete Manual of Suicide and its ideology of Angel Dust - a painkiller from this absurd world.

While it discovers the philosophical meanings of death and the possible positivity of suicidal

imaginations as a way to escape from the world, the ritual intends to serve as a coping technique,

both to the performer and the audience, by conceptually killing part of oneself - the performer's

digital doppelgänger Aiii. This act is not an encouragement of any suicidal act, but rather a relief of

thoughts. How can repetition be a destructive factor that wears out one's sense of being alive, that

transforms into hopelessness and powerlessness over time? If Wataru Tsurumi suggests his readers

to reflect suicidal actions through its methodology as a reliever towards sorrow and nothingness in

their lives, can a performative ritual, perhaps spiritually, also influence others' minds and offer some

fresh air to this suffocating world?

 

Aiii (Analog interpretation/interception implementation) is an improvisation machine designed

initially as a digital entity to perform with other musician(s). The goal of developing Aiii is an

attempt to interpret and potentially eliminate the hierarchical relationship between human and

machine as user and instrument by creating a performative platform where interactions between the

two can truly become two directional rather than the tool and its user. Through the 3-year process of

development in designing and programming Aiii so far, the personality of the creator - the habits,

aesthetics, and ways of listening in improvisation and music performance - has been embedded into

Aiii's body (program structure) and flash (code) through various designed algorithms and machine

learning methods. Slowly but surely, Aiii and its creator forms an invisible bond that exists between

their physical and digital bodies and becomes the doppelgänger of each other.

 

Aiii_v1.966875695106328∅_B is a version adapted for the upcoming festival by Projektgruppe

Neue Musik at Gerhard Marcks House in Bremen.