Victoria Shen is an experimental music performer and sound artist from San Francisco. Though analog synthesizers are the backbone of Shen’s music, while performing live, she plays self-made electronics, invented instruments, and even acoustic objects like a bull whip. Shen is a markedly mobile performer that muddles the boundaries between performer and audience, stage and floor. Her sets tend to be site-specific, in direct response to the physical and acoustic qualities of the space in which she performs. Her live show vacillates between moments of restraint and swells of frenetic and confrontational movement. A tightrope walk between control and chance, the whiff of danger is never far during Shen’s performances. Her sound is dynamic with a sensitivity to texture and structure throughout.
“The pandemic of 2020 has forced live performers to get creative in order to continue their practice. I’m presenting three pieces that were performed and filmed while much of the US was under lockdown. The first piece was a live performance outside of the 16th and Mission BART station in San Francisco on Halloween night, the middle piece in my bathtub, and the final piece in a closed pinball arcade. Please enjoy. :)”
