#Multimedia Works
Personæ
2022 | for two dancers, flute, cello, live electronics, sensors, and video art
Personæ is a multimedia project for two dancers, flute, cello, live electronics, sensors, and video art. Since the pandemic, we have spent more time being alone with ourselves. We had the time to rediscover and reconnect with ourselves. Personæ reveals an experience of being alone, dissociating or associating, a sense of presence, and a journey of reconciliation with oneself. The body has both physical and spiritual dimensions that connect with our embodied cognition and consciousness. The body has multiple attributes and its roles are diverse. In Personæ, the different approaches in music and choreography, such as spatialization of sounds, harmonics, intonations, and scale system in music, kinesphere and kinematic parameters of movement in dance are applied to link the body and sound, as well as convey the connotation of the concepts.
Premiered on 12th July, 2022 at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
Dance, Choreography: Moe Gotoda, Pingcheng Wu
Cello: Carmen Kleykens Vidal
Flute: Hannah Wirnsperger
Video materials filmed by: Taizhi Shao
ALIENATION
2021 | for solo dance, live electronics, sensors, and video art
Production, composition & interactive sound design: Fiona Xue Ju
Video art: Yan Yu
Dance: Nelia Naumanen
Stage lighting: Yan Yu
Sound recording: Fiona Xue Ju
Video recording: Qikun Wei
Video editing: Fiona Xue Ju / Special thanks to Hara Alonso
Alienation is a multimedia work for a dancer, live electronics, sensors, and video art (collaboration with media artist Yan Yu), recorded on May 27, 2021 at Royal College of Music in Stockholm (Kungliga Musikhögskolan), Sweden. It is one of a series of works related to the topic of “human – society – ego”. Under the situation of pandemics, the works present my reflections on reality and society and the concern for human nature. By experimenting with the sound I attempt to create a growing sense of alienation from reality as people nowadays slip further into the internet era and virtual reality.
be fixated and be immersed…
to be evoked or to be manipulated…
Experimental Film:
Invocation – BLESSING THE BOAT
2018 | experimental film
Program Notes by Composer:
I was inspired by the poem Invocation – Blessing the Boat written by Robin Coste Lewis, which is a narrative poem consisting of fragmented words to visualize exhibitions of Western art objects. “Of a Balsarium Glass Moss Fragment Untitled Gelatin Silver Print” (quote Invocation – Blessing the Boat from by Robin Coste Lewis) As a museumgoer, what I find most intriguing in this poem is that Lewis uses words of different museum objects and subtly connects them. The mashing together of a series of seemingly irrelevant words and concepts shows some special creative association among art objects throughout history. In my piece, the sound that emits every time inspires a comprehension and a visual emergence of its relative words in the poem. I try to present a reinterpretation of this poem through various musical ideas that resonate with me. For example, I make an association between a melody from a medieval old Roman chant Offertorium: Terra Tremuit with a sentence in Lewis’ poem, where the Roman chant appears in my mind when I access the old Roman art object as described by Lewis: “Obverse anthropomorphic sarcophagus. Alabastron eulogia ampulla.” Sometimes I use a specific timbre or texture to present an object in the poem, such as the “Fiber beads”, “Coins”, etc. At the end of my piece, you will hear several instruments and sounds in turns, which is exactly the same as the description in the “finale” section of the poem: “Harp with Bridge Harp Lute One-key Xylophone Slit Gong Trumpet Gong Gong Mallet Whistle Rattle Drum.” The music and the film present the whole content of the poem, providing the visual illustration of art objects in the museum. Art, as a product of the spiritual civilization of humans, also accompanies the development of human society through the times. It’s the result of constant exploration and creative recognition towards the universe. At the end of the poem, “a strong incised vaginal” suggests the origin of life, where new worlds are created, new journeys begin, and new lives are born. All life and art forms are connected; they both arise from the origin of life.
Invocation: Blessing the Boat (2018) 12’
Composer: Xue Ju
An experimental film with music (piece for Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble concert 5/2/2018)
Film director: Jingyuan Wang / Xue Ju
Based on the music recording of Invocation – Blessing the Boat, this 13-minutes short experimental movie was filmed in Cleveland Museum of Art and Allen Memorial Art Museum. As both the music and film present the whole content of the poem, it provides the visual illustration of art objects in the museum. It was shown on April 26, 2018, at Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin Conservatory, USA.
(Directed by Xue Ju, Visualized by Jingyuan Wang)
Escape of a Dream
(sound design)
2018 | sound design for installation
An experimental installation by the media artist Laura Li. It was on display at the Oberlin College on May, 2018.
It is a 2-hour-long video installation with performance elements in it inside a theatre room. The installation has two projections and one set. By entering the door, there is a small projection on a waved velvet screen showing an animated story. The second projection is projected from the floor to the rooftop. The center of the installation is an empty bed. On top of that is a glass fish tank with a clayed infant inside and next to the fish tank is an actress who is trying to embody the installer herself. The rooftop is transformed with bedsheets loosely hanging next to each other. A projection is onto that and through the clay infant, the projection has a shadow of the baby. The project means to be an autobiographical space for the creator who tries to re-make a dream space that she used to have when she was a child. The dark blue place represents her past and her fear–creating it serves as a therapeutic space for her to reflect and connect it to the audience.
© 2022 Ju Xue, all rights reserved
F I O N A - X U E · J U 