identity factory (solo version) (2025) - for 1 performer, 4 videos and 3D audio electronics

Duration: 22'48''
Program Note:

identity factory is a collaborative project by composer and performer Shasha Chen and visual artist Qingyuan Wang, exploring the virtual-audio performance space as a living organism. In this environment, screens, sound, and live performance elements interact like interdependent “organs,” forming a dynamic and responsive system. As part of Chen’s ongoing series fe-[mute(male)], the work examines the reproduction, commodification, circulation, and consumption of the female body as a simulacrum.

Through performative and audiovisual layers, identity factory investigates how gender, identity, and corporeality are shaped and represented within social and systemic structures. Combining 3D audio, video, and live performative elements, the piece bridges installation and performance art. The visual dimension, created in collaboration with Qingyuan Wang (video) and Lilai Jia (animation), extends the sound into virtual spatial depth, while Chen’s compositional structure invites the audience into a reflective, immersive environment where the body is simultaneously medium, metaphor, and site of transformation.

This project is commissioned by SANE - Spatial Audio Network Europe as part of the Artist-in-Residence program @ ECHO Factory, Festspielhaus Hellerau (Dresden), and ZiMMT (Leipzig).
Video footage shot at Carins Studio. Special thanks to Sculptor Christopher Cairns.