Viola Yip is a Berlin-based experimental composer, performer, improviser, sound artist and instrument builder from Hong Kong. She develops unusual self-built instruments, compositions and performances that explore the complex and dynamic relationships between materiality, media, space, human body and machine body through sounds.
Her instruments and performances have been presented in music festivals and venues such as Issue Project Room New York, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Cycling ‘74 Expo, Hong Kong Arts Center, QO-2 Brussels, Moers Festival, ZKM Karlsruhe, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Heroines of Sound Festival, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Blurred Edges Festival Hamburg, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, NEXT festival Bratislava and Serralves Contemporary Art Museum in Porto.
Questions and Answers
3 FACTS
1: Everything comes from an entangled network of context.
2: Making is a way of deconstructing.
3: Viola Yip is my real name.
11 QUESTIONS
What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
I have always been the most inspired when I got to meet musician-friends who dedicated themselves and explored the depth of one small thing (e.g. one instrumental technique or one musical/conceptual idea) and expand it into a performative musical act that also genuinely reflect who they are.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
I chose to take piano lessons at the age of 7, when I was told that I could only choose one artistic activities for myself.
3. How will you integrate artificial intelligence into your project and which specific AI technologies or tools are you using?
I use artificial intelligence to develop an interactive system with my wearable inflatable robot arm. Since the inflatable is made of lightweight materials, this interface highlights the dynamic relationships between air pressure, weight of the inflatable materials, gravity, the movement and the inertia of the human body. I was interested in materializing AI generated algorithm, and how its behaviors reveal its entangled relationships with its surroundings through a human body, and eventually becomes a choreography.
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Berlin is Berlin.
5. What’s your favorite place in your town?
My home.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
If there was no concept of music ever, I would still want to find something to do with my hands.
7. What was the last record/music you bought or listen?
Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith – Defiant Life
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I don’t really have one particular person that I would like to collaborate with. But in general I am very keen to collaborate with people who are interested in creating a shared space for listening, creating and reflecting, allowing the exchange to materialize in the collaboration.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
My best gig is yet to come :)
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Technology has always been present in my work on different levels. Sometimes I play it and use it. Sometimes it helps me develop my work. Sometimes I hack it. Sometimes I play with it, etc.
11. How do you plan to present the results of your research at Radialsystem?
It will be a performance of me and my wearable inflatable robot, with movements and spatial audio.
