Los Angeles-based composer Lucy Liyou synthesizes field recordings, text-to-speech readings, poetry, and elements from Korean folk opera into sonic narratives that explore the implications of Orientalism and Westernization. Combining disparate sonic elements into critically cohesive pieces, the musical world of Lucy Liyou alternates between beautiful serenity and unsettling entropy. Arresting ballads and contemporary classical pieces fragment into decaying shards, voices get warped beyond recognition, and shimmering light makes way for bit-crushed noise. Her latest record, Dog Dreams (개꿈), is a rumination on the double-sidedness of trauma and love, on how one does not undercut the other, but rather how both are interlocked in an affective dialectic. Liyou’s work has earned acclaim from Pitchfork, The Guardian, Bandcamp Daily, The Quietus, Them, Tone Glow, Wire Magazine, Mixmag Asia, The FADER, and NPR Music, among others, and received notable airplay on NTS Radio, KEXP, NPR, and Sonos Radio’s Radio Hour with Thom Yorke. Liyou has shared the stage with artists like L’Rain, claire rousay, Salamanda, Drew McDowall (Coil), Theodore Cale Shafer, HTRK, Liz Harris (Grouper) and performed on stages such as Cafe OTO, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and Rewire Festival.
Yes, Sydo, a collaboration by Danielle LaFrance and Josh Rose, explores how poetry and sound can meld into an alternative form using Homer’s epic Odyssey as its anchor, twisting tradition by creating content that interrogates dominant Western canon. Yes, Sydo prods the paradox of current times, questioning how such an aftermath can exist when the unremitting characteristics of global capitalism rage on to the tune of business as usual. Yes, Sydo looks to reframe the oldest Western epic, challenge its legacy and ultimately target the pain of navigating today’s tragedies and ideologies. The motivation behind Yes, Sydo is to completely fuse these intense affective sensations into another art form they are defining as “intertextual sound,” relating to or involving a relationship between texts and the sensation evoked by the oscillation in pressure propagated in a medium. Intertextual sound is an experiment in making new sensations at a time in crisis when new sensations in abundance are needed most.
Medical Museum is a video work by duo Laura Lulika and Hang Linton, with interpretation by deaf performer Gaitrie Persaud. Curated by AO Roberts.
Presented with the West End Cultural Centre.
ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION
The front entrance of the West End Cultural Centre is nearly at sidewalk level. There are no steps, however, there is a small incline at the door threshold of about two inches. In the entranceway, there is an elevator that can take people up to the lobby and a volunteer with a key available to help. The lobby is at the same level as the venue. The seating in both Ventura Hall and ACU Hall is modular and can be adjusted as necessary to accommodate patrons’ needs. The washrooms in the lobby are both wheelchair accessible. Parking at the venue is only available on the street. Patron can be dropped off and picked up at the front of the building. There are sidewalk curb cuts at the corner of Ellice Avenue and Sherbrook Street, approximately ten meters from the entrance to the building.
Masking is recommended but not required, and masks will be available at the door.