AUDREY CHEN is a 2nd generation Chinese/Taiwanese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976 (AUDREY CHEN, n.d.).

In Audrey’s performance I found particularly interesting an intersection between sound art, music, linguistics and body performance. Her vocal/synth performances go with its non-rigid flow into the opposition of structures within classical music which she has been trained in as violoncellist and vocalist. Her use of voice becomes more than just instrumentation since she is creating a new sonic language. By this Audrey Chen points out an inherent attribute of the music – to be a form communication which goes beyond human language and its ability to communicate unspeakable like for example certain emotions.

Audrey Chen stated that during her performances she may even achieve different states of mind by the way how she is breathing (hyper-ventilating) during her vocal expressions. This brings her into the realm of her own sonic language which she has been creating and elaborating past 20 years and admitted that it becomes sometimes difficult to tune back into communication with other people in the classic language based form of human speech just right after she finishes the performance.

This brings me to thoughts and questions of how many various ways of non-verbal communication may exist and arise from the realm of human mind and body. Art in general has been certainly one of them and the vocal performance of Audrey Chen challenges boundaries of usual human spoken language as well as traditional singing in the same time.

Bibliography:

AUDREY CHEN. (n.d.). AUDREY CHEN. [online] Available at: http://www.audreychen.com [Accessed 24 Apr. 2023].