Sound Performance by Yan Jun and Kevin Corcoran

Yan and Corcoran have taken a tag-team approach to their prior collaborations, performing their 2018 release “A linear duo” at CAFA in Beijing with a chess clock between them; a 2021 collaboration replaced the chess clock with file exchanges between Beijing and San Francisco. This special performance at the Asian Art Museum offers a new chapter in the ongoing exchange between two accomplished figures from the rich experimental music scenes of Beijing and the Bay Area.

About the Artists

• Yan Jun is a musician and poet based in Beijing. His experimental and improvised music uses noise, field recordings, the body, and concept as materials; his performances include visiting the audience’s home to play a plastic bag. He is a member of FEN, Tea Rockers, and the Impro Committee, and founder of the independent label Sub Jam. “I wish I was a piece of field recording,” says Yan.

• Kevin Corcoran works with sound in contexts of music, art, communication, and place. His approach combines percussion, location recordings, electronics, image-making, writing, and walking. As a percussionist, he is focused on extended techniques which emphasize textural sound, friction, sympathetic vibration, sustained tones and the use of found objects. Whether working in sparse sound with a single drum and cymbal or frenetic contexts on the drum kit, improvisation is crucial to his practice as a generative method and non-hierarchical exchange of ideas.