Audrey Chen

Foto: Nikolaus Ostermann

As a second generation Taiwanese-Chinese American (born 1976) living in Berlin, Audrey Chen`s work has long dealt with and continues to explore the displacement of story and history due to the migration and integration processes, loss and adoption of language, untold stories, and how the past can be accessed and traced through inherited and lived experience. Her practice is deeply intertwined with this act of invocation, calling upon the physical body to remember beyond the limitations of its own memory, beyond its lifetime into generations past, simultaneously echoing into the present and forwards. 

Through extreme and unprocessed hyperextensions of her voice, she invokes a highly amplified joint resonant body/space transforming itself in a feedback loop of imagination, touch, vibration, sound and aural sensation.

Aside from her solo concerts, Chen performs currently in her longest running duo project since 2005 with Phil Minton; as BEAM SPLITTER with trombonist Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø; as MOPCUT with Lukas Koenig and Julien Desprez; in duo with electronic music artist Kaffe Matthews; and as a duo for voice/live digital process with Mexican sound artist Hugo Esquinca.

Her more recent album releases include, “By the Stream” with Phil Minton – Subrosa (Brussels), “Hiss & Viscera” with Richard Scott – Sound Anatomy (Berlin), “Rough Tongue”, BEAM SPLITTER’S debut LP – Corvo Records (Berlin) and latest “Split Jaw” on Tripticks Tapes (US), her solo album “Runt Vigor” – Karl Records (Berlin) and two records with MOPCUT, “Accelerated Frames of Reference” – Trost (AT) and “Jitter”, A split release on Opal Tapes (UK) and Ventil Records (AT).

Chen has performed across Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Canada and the USA. Some festival appearances include: Unsound Festival (Krakow, PL), CTM Festival (Berlin, DE), Maerzmusik (Berlin, DE), Color Out of Space (Brighton, UK), Donau Festival (Krems, AT), Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville/FIMAV (CA), Festival Ecuatoriano de Música Contemporánea (Quito,Ecuador), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, AT) and Wien Modern (Vienna, AT); and venues such as: Berghain (Berlin, DE), Covent Garden (London, UK), Radialsystem (Berlin, DE), Radio France (Paris, FR), Theatre Bouffes du Nord (Paris, FR), Bimhuis, (Amsterdam, NL), Rote Fabrik (Zurich, CH), Anton Kern Gallery (NYC, US), and Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center (Water Mill, NY, US).

Since 2011, she relocated to Berlin, Germany from Baltimore, MD USA and continues to maintain an active international touring schedule.