Daedalus Drones is an immersive installation designed to exist under two aspects: 1) as a stand-alone installation, and 2) an instrumentalized architectural space for a live performance with the artist/vocalist, Ken Ueno.

Custom speakers mounted on motorised rails will be installed in the gallery moving choreographically in counterpoint to a swarm of small drones. Audience members time will be allowed into this space, safely behind a metal-link fence. The signification of the materials (drones and fence) trace their lineage to Daedalus’ mythical labyrinth and point forward to our contemporary moment – a commentary on our relationship with technology.

invention: To dream ourselves out of a dark place
daedalus: inventor and architect in Greek mythology who broke through barriers.

Apart from baths to dance floors, masts and sails, Daedalus also built a labyrinth for King Minos of Crete to entrap the Minotaur. When Daedalus found himself imprisoned in his own labyrinth, he used feathers and wax to craft a pair of wings and took flight.

In today’s technologically advanced world, flying is no longer a pipe dream.

The Asia Society Hong Kong Center is transformed into a labyrinth, as maverick composer Ken Ueno recasts physical gestures into sounds, inventing his own vocal technique amplified through a megaphone, with drones and movable speakers in the role of a dance corps along with a chorus of sound artists and percussionists creating a unique “Sounding Architecture”. Together they comment on our complex, labyrinthine relationship with technology.

Venue
Asia Society Hong Kong Center

Composer/Performer
Ken Ueno

Curator/Architect
Thomas Tsang

Director, HKU Percussion Ensemble
Deborah Waugh

Performers
The Up:Strike Project
HKU Percussion Ensemble

Presented by
New Vision Arts Festival

Produced by
Osage Art Foundation

BIOGRAPHIES

Ken Ueno
Rome Prize and Berlin Prize winner Ken Ueno is a composer, vocalist, and sound artist. His music has been performed at venues and festivals around the world. As a vocalist, Ueno invents bespoke techniques and performed as soloist in his vocal concerto with orchestras in Boston, New York, Warsaw, Vilnius, Bangkok, Sacramento, Stony Brook, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina. His installations have been featured at MUAC (Mexico City), the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Shenzhen Bienniale, the Telfair Museum, and Art Basel. Ueno holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and his bio appears in The Grove Dictionary of American Music.

Thomas Tsang His curatorial projects include “Cloud of Unknowing: A City with Seven Streets” at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, MTR Art in Architecture Station for the Hong Kong West Kowloon railway station, and Hong Kong Exhibition 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. He is the recipient of the Marion O. and Maximilian E. Hoffman Rome Prize by American Academy in Rome, Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, and Mellon Visiting Artist at the Susan and Donald Newhouse Centre for the Humanities Wellesley College, and the 2021 Matakyev Research Residency at Arizona State University. In addition, he is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong.

Deborah Waugh As a performer and educator, Deborah Waugh has been engaged in the Hong Kong arts scene since arriving in the city over two decades ago. Currently working at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), she premiered numerous compositions with various ensembles. She performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Opera, Australian Ballet, Sydney Theatre Company, Australian Contemporary Theatre Company, and other leading Australian ensembles. With countless performances and recordings in diverse genres, Deborah has performing diplomas from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, a Master of Music from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. from HKU.

Osage Art Foundation
Osage Art Foundation is a Hong Kong-based not-for-profit organisation established in 2005 that strives to build creative communities, promote cultural cooperation, nurture creative capacity, and foster international cultural exchange. The foundation has been promoting this through art exhibitions, publications, workshops, interdisciplinary performances, artist talks, and symposia, and it has been interested in exploring regional dialogues and exchanges in different perspectives as well as supporting art and technology

Asia Society Hong Kong Centre
Founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller III in New York, Asia Society is a leading educational organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among peoples, leaders and institutions of Asia and the United States in a global context. Across the fields of arts, business, culture, education and policy, Asia Society provides insight, generates ideas and promotes collaboration to address present challenges and create a shared future.

The Up:Strike Project
Founded by Karen Yu and Dr. Matthew Lau, The Up:Strike Project embodies the nature of the integral movement in percussion: “up” and “strike”. By bringing professional and emerging percussionists together, presenting and championing a diverse mix of percussion music, and supporting the future leaders of percussive arts, The Up:Strike Project endeavours to strike and stand out as the pioneer of the ever-changing art form in percussion and contemporary music.

HKU Percussion Ensemble
The HKU Percussion Ensemble is active in the contemporary music scene. Recent collaborations with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble include Double Music (2015), Genesis of a Music: The Genius of Harry Partch (2016), Sounding Architecture in Concert (2018), Eskyiu Playkits (2018), and Atlas 4, 《聽得見的城市》 (2019). Other performances include Ken Ueno’s only the breaths of favorite poems herein at UABB Shenzhen (2017) and HKU (2018).

Kampo Tse
Tse Kam-po is the Deputy Head of Media Design & Technology and a Lecturer in Sound. Since an early age, he has been enchanted by time, frequency, and amplitude – the key attributes of sound. He also spent more than ten years specialising in sound system optimisation, designing sound systems of notable experimental music performances such as Choi Sai Ho: Audio-Visual Live, Volt In Music: First Touch of Electricity, Primary Shapes & DJ Tommy: Blending Worlds, and Choi Sai Ho: Live. Planet. Noise.

Amy Chan
Light artist, theatre practitioner, and artistic director of Drama COLLABoratory. A Master of Fine Arts (with distinction) graduate of Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, major in lighting design. Her works explore the musicality, performativity and theatricality of light in performance and installation, and the in-betweens of light-music, performance-installation and arts-medicine. Her recent works include light installation-performances “Things That Talk” and “Inter-Face”.

Tim Chan
Hong Kong Percussionist, Composer, Videographer. His compositional work can be heard from different commissions and performing groups, including Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Theatre Horizon, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Oil Street Art Space, Soundpocket, City Contemporary Dance Centre, Tang Shu-Wing Theatre Studio. Tim has also been featured as a media artist in exhibitions organised by Lumenvisum, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, and The Society of Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention.

Sigma Art Services
Sigma Art Services offers bespoke Exhibition Installation, Logistics, Art Handling, and Procurement services with proven expertise and a reputation for efficiency and reliability. Our range of experience in support of museums, galleries, and hotels includes every aspect of planning exhibitions and logistics, from single artworks to entire collections. Our clients/completed projects include Art Basel Hong Kong, Sydney Biennale, Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, Park Hyatt Sanya Sunny Bay Resort, Rosewood Hong Kong and many more.