fe-mute(male) (2025) - for female performers, piano, electronics, and needles

Duration: 17'04''
Program Note:

By perceiving and uses the interior of the piano as a metaphor for the uterus, extending outward from the performer's own body, this work sees the performer’s body as part of the “organic piano”.

It is structured through the use of her pulse rate (speed), breath (voice), hands (keyboard), “womb” (inside piano), and legs (pedals), to constantly interact, contrast, and transform between muted and resonated sounds, representing the female body as the ultimate battlefield — a producer and social resonator, inherently marked by violence, oppression, and trauma — while exposing the surrogacy industry's exploitation of women through systemic external violence (needles).

This project is part of Chen’s Concert Series: fe-[mute(male)]—an investigation on violence toward women, funded by Presser Music Award 2024.