TRANSMISSION ART ARCHIVE
Victoria Shen
Aaron Dilloway and Victoria Shen perform during Upstate Art Weekend at Wave Farm. Photographed by Adam T. Deen. (Jul 23, 2022)
Aaron Dilloway and Victoria Shen perform during Upstate Art Weekend at Wave Farm (2). Photographed by Adam T. Deen. (Jul 23, 2022)
Aaron Dilloway and Victoria Shen perform during Upstate Art Weekend at Wave Farm (3). Photographed by Adam T. Deen. (Jul 23, 2022)
Aaron Dilloway and Victoria Shen perform during Upstate Art Weekend at Wave Farm (4). Photographed by Adam T. Deen. (Jul 23, 2022)
Gear setup at Upstate Art Weekend. Photographed by Adam T. Deen. (Jul 23, 2022)
The crowd during Upstate Art Weekend performance by Aaron Dilloway and Victoria Shen. Photographed by Adam T. Deen. (Jul 23, 2022)
Victoria Shen performs with a comb during Upstate Art Weekend. Photographed by Adam T. Deen. (Jul 23, 2022)
Aaron Dilloway and Victoria Shen perform live at The Avalon Lounge. Photographed by Bryan Zimmerman. (Jul 21, 2022)
Victoria Shen performs at The Avalon Lounge. Photographed by Wave Farm. (Jul 21, 2022)
Aaron Dilloway and Victoria Shen arrive at Wave Farm. Photographed by Wave Farm. (Jul 17, 2022)
Victoria Shen Portrait. Courtesy the artist. (Mar 30, 2022)
Victoria Shen is a sound artist, experimental music performer, and instrument-maker based in San Francisco. Shen's sound practice is concerned with the spatiality/physicality of sound and its relationship to the human body. Her music features analog modular synthesizers, vinyl/resin records, and self-built electronics. Eschewing conventions in harmony and rhythm in favor of extreme textures and gestural tones, Shen uses what she calls "chaotic sound" to oppose signal and information, eluding traditionally embedded meaning. Her DIY approach to deconstructing the concepts of “materiality, value and mass production” both integrate and re-contextualize the formats of the readymade and assemblage techniques. For example, the album art for her debut LP, “Hair Birth,” utilizes copper to transform the cover into a loudspeaker through which the record can be played. For recent performances, she pioneered the use of Needle Nails, acrylic nails with embedded turntable styluses, which allow her to play up to 5 tracks of a record at once. Shen has performed solo across North America, Japan, Mexico, and Europe as Evicshen and as half of the duo TRIM in North America and the UK. Some notable venues in which she has performed include Boston City Hall, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, ISSUE Project Room NY, DOMMUNE Tokyo, and Petreon Sculpture Park Cyprus. Shen has also been an artist in residence at Elektronmusikstudion EMS Stockholm SE, WORM Rotterdam NL, Kurimanzutto New York US, the Sound Laboratory of The Royal Danish Academy Copenhagen DK, and AUDIUM San Francisco.