Updates
April 15, 2023
Welcome to the website!
Yours Truly
Ariel used to play guitar. Now he mostly makes beats.With the impression that music was either a compositional activity or a performative one, this switch in music practice was confusing because beat-making simply does not fit with this duality.Determined to sort it out once and for all, he soon found out that this type of friction has historically persisted between institutionally-entrenched paradigms that are founded upon embodied modes of making sounds and the many types of electronic and computerized music-making practices that have emerged since.Making a case for how an existentially grounded idea of ludomusicality is useful for addressing such complications, Ariel successfully defended his doctoral dissertation by 2022.Ariel currently lectures on topics such as philosophy of technology and popular music studies at City University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University.Ariel also dabbled in projection mapping, kinetic sculpture-making, and other new media projects when pursuing an MFA in Creative Media. You can check out some videos of this stuff elsewhere on the site.
Mercurial EP
Teaching
- Led Ableton Live workshops at City University of Hong Kong's Communication Department over several semesters.- Has taught 5 semesters of the undergraduate course Technology in Art, Science, and Everyday Life at City University of Hong Kong (Originally designed by Dr. Olli Tapio Leino). Recognizing that both subjective encounters with the lifeworld and human culture at large are co-constituted with the technological means that make them possible, the course exposes students to a variety of perspectives (Don Ihde, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Heidegger...etc.) with the aim of helping students establish their own theoretical foundations by which to make sense of their technologically saturated lives.
Text
- Doctoral Dissertation (2022) [...to be uploaded]
Description: While a major portion of Ariel's thesis traces a gradual realization of music production's fundamental exclusion from conventional composition/performance dualities, the phenomenological and existentialist approach that was adopted in this process ultimately led him to seek resolution through play. An eureka moment occurred when play's universality, flexibility, mercuriality, and autotelicity revealed itself to be an excellent way to frame musical activity. Turning back to the music producer's struggles towards playing live, it became clear that this conceptualization of music-making grounded in play could not only help reconcile persistent tensions between newer musical practices and the deeply-historied musical paradigms that they defy, but also facilitate the accommodation of any musical unorthodoxy that have yet to come.
- Cash Rules Everything Around Me (2016)
Upcoming Shows
TBA
Past Shows
Sep 14, 2017 - Art in the Bar @ Cobo House
May 29, 2017 - Extended Eclectics @ XXX Gallery
Jul 09, 2016 - Noon Gazette and Daily Spy @ Duddells
Jul 02, 2016 - SPARK! ver.1 Electronic Sound & Vision @ SAAL
May 21, 2016 - ISEA Conference 2016 @ City University of Hong Kong
Apr 17, 2016 - Literature x Electronic Music @ Comix Home Base
Aug 29, 2015 - HK Blender #2 @ XXX Gallery
Aug 17, 2014 - Glitch Pop @ Music Room (Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity)
Mar 19, 2014 - City University 30 Years of Art and Culture Festival @ SCM
Mar 04, 2014 - Sonic Anchor #15 @ Hong Kong Arts Centre
Dec 01, 2013 - Clockenflap Festival @ West Kowloon Promenade
Sep 20, 2013 - Moon Fest @ Videotage
Jul 06, 2013 - SCM7 @ K11
Jul 05, 2013 - SCM Annual @ Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre
Other Projects
Untitled Light Sculpture (2013)
Projection Mapping
Music: "Technicalities" from the Mercurial EP
Glocken-spiel (2012)
Ludomusical kinetic sculpture inspired by 圍棋(Go).
Collaboration with Jack Lung.
Materials: max/msp + vvvv + webcam + pico projector + arduino + servo motors + acrylic