Vanessa Kwan

A collection of melodies. Embedded like a small light in the corner. This piece engages themes and processes of transparency/translucence, copying/covering, and distance/absence: the traces of a thing not there. Melody fragments expand and contract. Here, melody crystallizes into harmony and harmony unfolds as melody. Like a constellation of stars; or in the direction of […]

Flag ASMR “On Sept 11th, 2001 I watched the twin towers falling with my father. Glued to the TV. A silent demolition. An American reality TV show. In the weeks that followed, I started to see American flags everywhere. Especially from immigrants of all colors, flying the flag out of a sense of fear of […]

The Fabric Of Our Country This is the start of a new project combining my photography with digital painting. “The Fabric Of Our Country_#1, #2 & #3″, March 2020, 13″ x 19” dye print on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Satin paper.  

COVID Pan Drum: A Robot Tongue-Drum Rendering of the SARS-2 COVID Virus Genome I’m building a custom robot to play a little lap-sized tongue (steel) drum. A program will read through the roughly 30k base pairs in the COVID 19 (SARS-2 COVID Wuhan Seafood Market) DNA sequence. Particular (known) functioning segments will be sonified when […]

TW/CW: trauma **Trigger Warning** This is a multimedia piece about the experience of being a victim of trauma in the current COVID-19 climate. The piece consists of original poetry written and performed by Nicole Paige Chaffin over an original score by Charles Van Alst Danner. The score features a custom feedback instrument, the FeedBox in […]

Biological Internal Feedback Biological Internal Feedback is a visual music piece exploring the opaque gelatin that is created when combining the moment of inspiration and the realization of the thought. The video for this piece was created using nature footage taken from around my neighborhood, and abstract video synth textures created in the CalArts Videographics […]

This is no dream

This is a text setting of excerpts from “Notes on the Cinematograph” and “Au Hasard Balthazar” by Robert Bresson. The work is composed for speaking pianist.