A percussionist and performing artist, Karen Yu enjoys discovering the possibilities of combining sonic and performing arts. Through the unique blend of sight and sound inherent in percussion performance, Karen proactively seeks new approaches to transform the existing concert culture. Karen is a Co-founder and Director of the chamber percussion group, The Up:Strike Project, Project Coordinator of NOVA Ensemble, and Co-founder of EXORDIUM Collective. Karen has most recently featured at the opening of Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong’s Sound Forms 2019; also appeared in Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Hong Kong Arts Festival, Hong Kong Sinfonietta @ Artistree “Notating Beauty That Moves,” Tai Kwun Lunch Time Series, Transplanted Roots Percussion Research Symposiums (Brisbane & Montreal), Banff Centre of Arts and Creativity, Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab and IRCAM ManiFeste Academy.  

Born in the Island of Borneo, Malaysia, Thomas Tsang studied at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and one year in the stage production at the Juilliard School. In 2000, he received a professional degree in Architecture at The Cooper Union in New York City. Tsang is a recipient of the coveted Marion O. and Maximilian E. Hoffman Rome Prize in Architecture and was named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. He is also the recipient of numerous international awards including Shinkenchiku-sha, Central Glass, Graham Foundation, ENYA Prize and American Academy in Rome. His research and work have been published internationally in the Wall Street Journal, Asia CNN, CCTV, Shinkenchiku, LEAP, Japan Architects, Domus, UIA Tokyo, AREA, Artforum, and among others.

His curatorial projects include Cloud of Unknowing: A City with Seven Streets at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, MTR Art in Architecture Station for the Hong Kong West Kowloon railway station, and recently, 2018 Hong Kong Exhibition at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. His publications include ‘On the Edge: Ten Architects from China’ (2007) and ‘Open City: Existential Urbanity’ (2015). He is the co-chief editor for The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Journal, Occupy and chief-editor of Sounding Architecture Manifest. Taught at the Cooper Union and China Academy of Art, currently at University of Hong Kong.

Giorgio Biancorosso is Professor of Music and Director of the Society of Fellows in the Humanities, The University of Hong Kong. He is the author, most recently, of Situated Listening: The Sound of Absorption in Classical Cinema (Oxford University Press, 2016) and “The Phantom of the Opera and the Performance of Cinema” (The Opera Quarterly 34/2-3, 2018). His work on the history and theory of listening reflects a long-standing interest in musical aesthetics, film music, and the history of global cinema. He is currently completing for Duke University Press the monograph Wong Kar Wai’s Soundtracks: Music-Bricolage-Representation. Biancorosso is also active in Hong Kong as a programmer and curator.

Dr Damien Charrieras is currently Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media in Hong Kong, he is programme leader for the Master of Arts in Creative Media (MACM) and leads the Blockchain and Creative Industries Research Group at the Center for Applied Computing and Interactive Media at City University of Hong Kong. A graduate from the Lyon Institute of Political Studies, he holds a PhD in Film Studies from Sorbonne Nouvelle University, a PhD in communication studies from the University of Montreal. He has been a visiting scholar at Brown University (Modern Culture and Media), New York University (Music) and worked as a researcher at the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, at the Centre National de la Cinématographie (Paris) and at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (Montréal)

As a media theorist he is interested in underground musical scenes in Hong Kong, the analog use of digital technologies in electronic music, as well as in a variety of topics pertaining to digital creation (new media arts practices and technologies, blockchain technologies in creative industries, machine learning in arts, worldbuilding, metacreation in video games, the use of neural networks in game engines). His papers were published in Organized Sound (Cambridge UP), Cities (Elsevier) and Human Relations (Sage).

As a performer and educator, Deborah Waugh has been actively engaged in the Hong Kong arts scene since arriving in the city two decades ago. Currently working at The University of Hong Kong, she has premiered numerous compositions with various ensembles as well as commissioned new works. Recent projects include the founding of the Sounding Architecture project with Thomas Tsang in 2016. This led to innovative collaborations with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Ken Ueno, Arham Aryadi, and the HKU music ensembles which she directs. In addition to her engagement with contemporary music, Deborah is also an experienced chamber and orchestral player. She worked as a casual percussionist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for many years, as well as performed with the Australian Opera, Australian Ballet, Sydney Theatre Company, Australian Contemporary Theatre Company, and other leading Australian ensembles. She was a founding member of Aradia Ensemble in Toronto and performed with the Canadian world music ensemble Musaïc at Expo '98 in Lisbon. With countless performances and recordings in a diverse range of genres, Deborah has performing diplomas from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Master of Music from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. from The University of Hong Kong.

Kung Chi Shing Born and raised in Hong Kong, Kung Chi Shing is a composer and performer. Kung studied classical music and composition in the United States with Richard Wernick, Chinary Ung and George Crumb. In his compositions and performances, Kung focuses on experimentation with different formats, including pop, classical and improvisational music, and theatre art. Since 1996 he has created, composed and staged six full-length music theatre pieces (with Valerie C. Doran as co-director): ‘Destiny Travels Limited’, ‘The Floating Bridge’, ‘City Inside a Broken Sky’, ‘M Garden’, ‘City Inside a Broken Sky II’ and ‘Minamata: A Requiem’. Kung has written music for Taiwan’s U-Theatre, Dance Forum Taipei; Hong Kong’s City Contemporary Dance Company, Hong Kong Ballet, Hong Kong Dance Company; China’s Guangdong Modern Dance Company, Canada’s Toronto Dance Theatre among others. He has done his own solo performance in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Cuba, Tashkent, New York, London, Berlin and Venice. Currently Kung is the Artistic Associate (Music) in West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong.

Shane Aspegren (b. 1975, Nebraska, USA) currently lives and works in Hong Kong. His practices include or have included music, sound, installation, video, photography, ceramics, and various modes of performance—often working across these different media and frequently through collaboration or spectator-interaction. Aspegren’s works are characterized by their juxtaposition of carefully-crafted and improvisational elements, exploring a cross-discipline perspective on such topics as metaphysics, habitual customs and human response to natural phenomena. In addition to his solo works, Aspegren collaborated closely with Adrian Wong between 2014 and 2017, co-creating installations, videos, prints, sculptures and public interventions, including the series Third Eye Kaleidoscope (for which they were awarded a Hong Kong Arts Development Council grant), the multi-faceted exhibition Cromniomancy and the immersive performance/installation Ci Ha Visto Un Re (A King Saw Us). Aspegren has additionally worked in roles of composer, performer or sound designer for exhibitions and performances with Tarek Atoui, Samson Young, Manuel Pelmus, Ivanhoe Lam, Steven Reker, Huang Rui, Cody Hudson and others. 

As a composer, writer and multi-instrumentalist Aspegren has made dozens of studio albums and performed hundreds of concerts around the world including festivals such as Primavera Sound & Coachella to prestigious venues such as the Whitney Museum. He was half of the internationally acclaimed duo The Berg Sans Nipple from 2001-12 and later co-founded the Hypno-Tropicalia group Blood Wine or Honey, who released their album Fear & Celebration to worldwide acclaim in 2018. Aspegren also performed as a musician on recordings and world tours with Bright Eyes, Songs:Ohia, François Breut, Don Nino, Woodkid and others. 

Aspegren remains active as a composer and performer in both underground and performing arts contexts (dance, theatre, experimental opera) as well as for film scores and soundtracks. His improvised and one-off projects have included collaborations with dj sniff, Arto Lindsay, Jerome Lorichon, Quintin Rollet, Antilles, Kung Chi Shung, F.Lor, Ikue Mori, Ken Ueno, Nerve, Silver Apples and many others. 

Aspegren received a BA in Film Studies from University of Nebraska. His work has been exhibited, performed, commissioned and collected internationally including at Palazzo Reale, Milan; Spring Workshop, Hong Kong; Para Site, Hong Kong; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; Frank Yang Foundation, Shenzhen; the Venice Biennale, Venice; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Anthology Film Archives, New York; Rossi & Rossi, Hong Kong and many others.  shaneaspegren.com

Nerve (Steve Hui) is a Hong Kong-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice mines the boundaries between contemporary music, sound art, multimedia theatre and underground subcultures. His main interests are crossing boundaries, experimenting tradition and remixing art forms. His works have been appeared at Hong Kong Arts Festival, Microwave International Media Art Festival and New Vision Arts Festival. As a composer Steve has received commissions from City Contemporary Dance Company, Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Zuni Icosahedron. As a performer he has played at CTM Vorspiel, Kill the Silence, Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival and Outlook Festival Hong Kong. He is a graduate of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and is a 2017 Asian Cultural Council fellow in New York

Born in Hong Kong, Fiona Lee‘s works of art are derived from the intersection between installation and performance. Listening creates an important connection between Fiona and the world; this is when she feels the movement of every single moment. She believes her art creations represent the progress she is making in exploring and accepting her own and others’ possibilities. 

Lee’s installations have featured at a number of art festivals, including ART CAMP TANGO 2017, Around Sound Art Festival 2014 (Kyoto, Japan), Transi(en)t Manila Project Glocal 2014 (Manila,Philippines), the 12th Seoul International NewMedia Festival and the 16th ifva(Interactive Media Category) Finalist Works Exhibition (Hong Kong). Her sound and light performance “delight” has been hosted internationally in Taiwan, Korea, Macau and Hong Kong. She was invited to perform at the Asian Meeting Festival 2016 in Japan, and she also takes part in improvisations with a variety of musicians & sound artists. Recently, she is the member of Namiji, an artist group formed with Samson Cheung & Wong Fuk Kuen. Fiona has released her self-published album, “walking in a daze” (2016), which has collected sound works she created.