www.jshihart.com
Amor Fati, 2019.
Video still. Director, J. Shih; Directors of photography, Margarita Ernandes, Tiago Mena Abrantes, Adam Verhoeff. Total running time: 15 minutes. This narrative film uses multiple cameras and points of view to capture a cellist’s traumatic experience prior to an important audition.
Amor Fati, 2019. Video still #2
Coded Nightmares, 2018. Performance Documentation.
The video is made with the audiovisual synthesizer, Jitter to be projected onto a white man and an asian woman performing a scene from Amor Fati.
Unbound, 2017. Sculpture for a performance.
Running time: 12:32
This performance is part of a series that documents my relationship with the cello. A year after leaving the music conservatory, I stretched and tied pantyhose over my instrument. For this performance, I untie those knots while a digital (iPhone) metronome ticks.
J’s Video Synth, 2019. Video Still
Running time: 00:59
I am using Max/MSP/Jitter, a visual programming language to synthesize sound from video. This video documents the program converting two oscillator signals into video, binary data and finally audio.
Going Bananas, 2019. Studio Installation, Max/MSP video still.
Going Bananas, 2019. Studio Installation documentation.
The Phoenix Lament, 2019. Performance Documentation with Morrison Gong.
"The Phoenix Lament" is an expanded cinema performance that ties in personal narratives of seeking liberation and the rebirth of familial shame with re-interpretation of female madness in Eastern and Western literature
Self Portrait, 2019. Max/MSP video still.
Having spent over 15 years playing the cello, I left classical music with remorse for what could have been. My studio practice is inextricably tied to my experience as a musician.
Examining personal traumas through performance and filmmaking inspire me to compose nonlinear narratives from multiple perspectives. Through screenwriting, working with sound, video, and installation, I create my own instructions in producing an experimental language.
My art flows between the analogue and digital worlds. Analog resembles the body, rendered in my practice as performance and installation. The Digital contains a complex web of binary operations designed into the software which I use in my sound and video-based works. There is a natural duality that persists in my perception due to preconditioned standards. Analog/Digital, Black/White, Wrong/Right – I investigate and then distort these dualities through image making, sound synthesis and data manipulation. Returning to sound from a digital perspective, I am questioning my knowledge of music through a process of unlearning. Rules and discipline had previously guided my direction as a musician. I am reclaiming my canvas as a non-singular practice, where I can contribute my voice to a greater cultural discussion.
