my street credit

I was at the Astoria for a bass music party, someone came up to me and asked if I am Sammy Chien. I said yes. He smiled and said that he knows my work and it's (*he paused for a beat) "fucking gangsta". 

I want this in my review, please.

Dance In Vancouver 2013: Made In China v2

THE 9TH BIENNIAL DANCE IN VANCOUVER FESTIVAL 

Program One:
Wen Wei Dance - Made in China v.2

Wednesday November 20, 7pm + Saturday November 23, 9pm
The Dance Centre 
http://thedancecentre.ca/events/dance_in_vancouver_2013

Wen Wei Wang’s intimate new work is a collaboration with Gao Yanjinzi, Artistic Director of Beijing Modern Dance Company, Qiu Xia He, of Vancouver’s Silk Road Music and Sammy Chien, of New Media Art CollectiveChimerik 似不像. Through dance, music, storytelling and new media they explore individual personal narratives that are bound by a shared Chinese heritage, and how their traditional artistic forms have evolved in a modern world.

----
this is our second collaboration of the work-in-progress version of Made In China. I'm very excited about this piece, as the last time we had a very deep and experiential movement, audio, visual and a very intuitive energy flow… This time we are experimenting with a bit more context and dynamics. We had a very interesting and organic 6 days of rehearsal, working with these genius, so much has arrived to the table. How do I keep it up and keep it down at the same time? Jinzi is 6 months pregnant, too. I'm taking one of her part from the last piece into a very weird version of my own movement. Wen Wei tells a story while Qiu Xia dances. And for the first time, you'll hear Jinzi speaking English on stage. As cliché as it sounds, we all stepped out of our comfort zone towards interdisciplinarity.

I would like to give a BIG THANK YOU shout out to Mark Coniglio, the creator of Isadora (arguably the most creative real-time audiovisual software for performance environment up to date), the Artistic Director of Troika Ranch (the pioneer company for digital performance) and one of the most important new media artist/educator today. He sacrifice his utmost valuable time to help me get through an unexpected technical issue in the software, not only to show his love of art and also a huge encouragement to the young interdisciplinary artist who's still struggling between the both sides of the brain. 

I believe though, that creativity can also come from understanding technicality and even beneath codes/technology, without such a flexibility and intuitive quality in my tools, I wouldn't be able to create something like this--a truly organic and creative process with dance, music, film and new media that includes live sound processing, live audiovisual and real-time/reactive video. Most importantly, it all slowly becoming more and more natural, as if these separated fields really morphed in this common playground, and we're all playing, with our bodies, intellect and find resonances in our soul… the tools that we have, are the extensions of our imagination. 

Sammy 

Photography by Chris Randle & Sophia Wolfe — with Wen Wei Wang at The Dance Centre.

(photo from Made In China v.1, Dancing on the Edge Festival 2013)

Made in China v2 for DIV

Pechakucha talk

My talk at Pechakucha is out!

Please "APPLAUD" it if you like it! I want more people to see it and continually to spread positivity and creative spirits to the world!

"I realized I could see the universe ... in an internal way."

PechaKucha 20x20 PRESENTATION OF THE DAY:
"Becoming Chimerik"

http://www.pechakucha.org/presentations/becoming-chimerik

Artist Sammy Chien highlights (at PKN Richmond, BC Vol. 2) his life-long journey of creating art and defining himself. He details his quest to increasingly connect with and act as a messenger for the spiritual world through his creative works.

Video Art installation exhibition in MADL 特別強調完全沒有畫面 影像創作聯展

I have a new video art/ experimental film installation that is being exhibited in MADL in Taipei.  exhibition goes til Sept. 8th, 2013. more info to come.

https://www.facebook.com/events/517587751644222/?ref=notif&notif_t=plan_user_invited

這些人通過清澈、率直的靈魂觀看這污穢、悲傷的社會，他們看到美麗幻境使他們這樣的人，興奮萬狀並讚嘆不已於是滔滔不絕的說了起來，在沒有人聽他們說時，他們便說給自己聽。」捷克文學家赫拉巴爾（Bohumil Hrabal）總是管這群人叫「底層的人們」，這群人講述事情是既來自現實，但卻又充滿了誇張，戲謔、怪誕和幻想。我們這群底層的人們， 生處在國家法制機構裡，有著痛苦的歷史記憶、有著良善的忙碌生活、 有著艱困的生存環境。但終究無法以自身對抗國家機器的運作、無法反抗社會困頓的潮流、無法過著愚人式的生活與思考，時時擔心着自我不同於「社會制度」而被屏除在社會結構的框架外。
此次展覽，由四位影像創作者江凱維、韓承燁、張修齊、林立翔（小目），與跨領域藝術家Sammy Chien(簡上翔)， 如同「Pábetelé」：藉由靈感的鑽石孔眼 ，看到的世界與現實生活行程強烈的反差，並藉由相機觀景窗去省視現今紊亂的現實社會。

江凱維『遠方的河』闡述着自我迷失在城市裡，藉由無意識機械化的動作與攝者的社會意識形態，反映創作者心中已失去的美好回憶。韓承燁『迴』以其快門的速度不斷地重複播放著反覆且規律的快門聲，試圖將過往的生活經驗，透過具有時間性的靜止畫面，再次將「瞬間」具體化。Sammy Chien(簡上翔) 『Proscenium』藉由芭蕾舞者連續動作與劇場互動，暗喻著自以為是的美好演出，背後往往針鋒相對、明爭暗鬥，如同政治人物般，總在人前光鮮亮麗的說著預演千百次的謊言，但實際上背地裡做著見不得人的勾當。林立翔(小目) 『 Part of the Weekend Never Dies』與張修齊『夜鷹』擷取長年拍攝的台灣夜生活與不為人知的地下樂團場景片段，具體而微的呈現此世代的慾望表徵，當中的疏離意識反應背後流動的寂寥。

荒木經惟曾說「攝影不會反應真實」而是直接了當表達被攝體本身所擁有的歷史感、與環境的交錯的情感，而藝術則是藝術家、現實世界以其製造圖像的方式交互影響作用著，並交雜著攝影者本身社會藝術形態，而自由的讓觀者解讀影像成像後所傳遞的訊息，換言之，攝者紀錄下的攝影作品中的真實性是再現攝者在現實社會中所體現的物件，藉由一連串的機械化的動作與攝者本身所認知下的意識形態，而當觀看者在某攝影作品做視覺藝術形態中尋找自我時，發現其與作者共鳴處所得到的快樂感，使攝影創作者往往為之激勵與感動，而在此時攝影者使用的機具僅只是為了再現「相遇的瞬間」時刻而存在著，羅蘭巴特的「此曾在」概念更是美化了運用相機如此涉入生活暴力的機具所產生的影像。

展覽名稱：特別強調完全沒有畫面
策展人：邱子芳
萬隆展場藝術家：江凱維、林立翔（小目）、韓承燁
迪化展場藝術家：張修齊、Sammy Chien（簡上翔）
文宣設計：黃詩惠
開幕茶會：2013年8月10號（星期六）下午兩點 萬隆展場
展覽網站：www.facebook.com/madL.art
展覽時間：2013年8月10日至2013年9月8日 週二~週日 1300—2000
展覽地址：萬隆展場 ／北市羅斯福路五段241-1號
迪化展場 ／迪化街一段46巷18弄4號

Six Fest

site-specific performance collaboration by Darcy Mcmurray, Bal Areli Moran & Sammy Chien 
New Media Sound + Live Drawing + Movement

I want to thank Darcy for inviting me to this experimental collaboration, what a wonderful dance artist full of creative and fun ideas! I was able to perform with Areli before she takes off to Mexico, and also got to participate one of the most organic, romantic and inspiring festival+wedding I've ever experienced. This is what art can do to people. It was such a beautiful, beautiful day/night.

congrats to PrOphecy, being an artist, you also get to make weddings that are actually enjoyable to attend, full with love, creative vibes and truly magical... 

Photo by Ash Tanasiychuk
more info:
http://vandocument.com/2013/08/six-fest-6th-ontario/?fb_action_ids=10201828812466741&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210201828812466741%22%3A196767040499396%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210201828812466741%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

I'm the 10th reason why you should love Taipei….

I'm the 10th reason why you should love Taipei….

English
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/reasons-to-love-taipei

Chinese
http://www.fankudo.com/tonytsou912/8236

Powell Street Festival's Spatial Poetics XII: Release Me @ SFU Woodwards review

Reviewed by Shalon WH on Vandocument

Visual artist and musician Howie Tsui, performer Andrew Lee, and media artistSammy Chien’s experimentations with layered photographic histories, new media projections and live sounds exposes local colonial history in their piece The Unfortunates of D’arcy Island. Tsui, Lee, and Chien sit at a lengthwise table centre stage. Strewn over the table is a plethora of musical instruments, digital pedals, laptops and samplers. Unexpectedly, Howie plays a guitar at the far end of the table, and projected onto the screen are photographs of citizens of D’arcy Island (used as a leper colony for Chinese immigrants from 1894 to 1924).

Initially, I am made uncomfortable by Chien’s manipulations, as he plays with the footage live, super-imposing haunting auras onto the photographic evidence of the exiled Chinese Canadians. It seems to manipulate my own sense of belonging. Tsui and Lee, however, provide an arching soundscape that provides intermittent escape from the horrifying images. As Chien continues, I notice his live manipulations of the on-screen images also trigger terrifying noises. I start to ease into the terror and he becomes more dramatic, imposing layers of coloured auras, making the images oscillate and warp while Tsui and Lee also warp their melodies.

work by Howie Tsui, photo courtesy the artist

The piece recalls the deeply deplorable history of exiled Chinese Canadian lepers sent to D’arcy Island between 1894 to 1924. The historical truth recounted by new media forms of storytelling, with live sound experimentations, could be understood as a comment on the contemporary realities of socio-spacial-economic separation, dislocation and isolation that is hardly unnoticeable outside the very doors of the performance space here in Vancouver.


see the full review:
http://vandocument.com/2013/07/spatial-poetics-xii-release-me-sfu-woodwards/

The Veil of Nature: Museum of Liminal Science (installation/research project)

Sammy Chien is working on this very interesting research & installation project at SFU produced by the super fantastic duo Martin Gotfrit & Patricia Gruben, recreating an old science lab with antiques and new technologies. Imagine if you look through the microscopes and sees real-time projections and your hands creates 8-channel sound that you may only hear in certain spots.

The Veil of Nature: Museum of Liminal Science unveils on Friday, June 14th 2013 with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. in Room 2205, SFU Woodward's, please come join us! (Free!)

One by one, visitors will enter a site inspired by the Cavendish physics lab at Cambridge University circa 1885, on the cusp of the great discoveries in particle physics. There they will find an immersive, interactive ‘cabinet of wonders’ that transports each one to an interior universe far beyond the visible apparatus of the science lab.

http://www.theveilofnature.net/Veil%20of%20Nature%20Installation%20Front.html


also, the Chimerik team in Taiwan are working on an epic RFID project, taking a big step. At the same time, we're working with one of the first hip hop dancer in Taiwan on a dance projection project that will be live soon. More info to come..

Jerome LOL - ESC CTRL Shift minimix

was a fun VJ gig!

Jerome LOL - ESC CTRL Shift minimix from MattTroy on Vimeo.


more info:
http://matttroy.net/esc-ctrl-shift

Brief Encounter

The Tomorrow Collective presents interdisciplinary mashups with butoh dancer Carolyn Chan, actor France Perras, painter Thomas Anfield, taiko player Eileen Kage, songwriter Tariq Hussain, playwright David Bloom, performance artist Nita Bowerman, comedian Wes Borg, entertainment lawyer Danielle Lemon, and media artist Sammy Chien/Chimerik.

Performance Works ( 1218 Cartwright, Granville Island )

Tix $28/25

http://www.straight.com/listings/arts/index.php?r=arts/detail&id=13487

10 diverse artists. 5 unusual pairs. 2 weeks to create.
They take the risks, you get the rewards!

Guest Programmer and Host: Riel Hahn

8 pm (doors 7:15pm)

Cabaret venue with bar & DJ
Wheelchair accessible

$28 in advance
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/367335
$25 at the door (Cash only)

ARTISTS
Carolyn Chan (Butoh Dancer)
France Perras (Actress)
Thomas Anfield (Painter)
Eileen Kage (Taiko Player)
Tariq Hussain (Songwriter)
David Bloom (Playwright)
Nita Bowerman (Performance Artist)
Wes Borg (Comedian)
Danielle Lemon (Entertainment Lawyer)
Sammy Chien / Chimerik (Media Artist)

With Live Drawing and Painting by EC Salazar - one original piece will be created and auctioned off each night!

MORE INFO
gm@tomorrowcollective.com
www.briefencounters.ca
www.tomorrowcollective.blogspot.com
@BrfNcntrs #BriefEncounters