COSMISM is a monthly performance event series of live music organized by China Institute Next Gen x Serica (CINGS). Curated by Chamberlain Zhang, this event creates a transformative sonic experience featuring emerging artists and performers living and visiting New York rooted in Asian heritage. COSMISM aims to be an ongoing social experiment, developing a communal intention of listening and transforming, giving shape to our community in which everyone contributes in their own way.
The performance will be introduced by curators or intellectuals who specialize in theories or practices of performance and contemporary art, followed by an interview with the artist. A reception with light food and drinks will follow each event.
The first performance in this series, featuring creative duo Alex Zhang Hungtai and Chamberlain Zhang, is taking place on Thursday, October 10th, 2024 at China Institute in America.
Alex Zhang Hungtai is a multi-disciplinary artist focused on improvisation and its correlation with the unconscious. His instrumentation ranges from saxophone, drums, to electronic music. Some past collaborators include: Tashi Dorji, Che Chen, Chris Williams, Sam Shalabi, David Maranha, and Gabriel Ferrandini. He has appeared in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return alongside Dean Hurley and Riley Lynch under the fictitious band TROUBLE. His latest film score GODLAND by Hlynur Pálmason was in competition at Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard. He currently lives in New York City.
Chamberlain Zhang is a composer, DJ, and sound artist. He holds an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College. Chamberlain received the Frog Peak Collective Experimental Music Award for Outstanding Experimental Music Performance in 2018. He held the 4D Sound Institute residency in Budapest, Hungary in 2021. His debut album In the Praise of Shadow featuring legendary Bay Area percussionist William Winanut is selected by Ryuchi Sakamoto for his curated playlist - SKMT picks on Spotify.
Performed at the special program of San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2018, called “Cinema for Your Ears” by San Francisco Weekly, and “Tape Capsules” by New York Times. His soundscore for “A TORTOISE'S YEAR OF FATE” is the only Chinese film nominated in the Locarno Film Festival 2023. His soundscore for New York-based design label YAYI CHEN “IT IS NOT SPRING UNTIL ALL FLOWERS BLOSSOM” is nominated in Fashion Film Festival Milano 2023. Chamberlain premiered his first live film scoring project (the first science-fiction film made in China, 小太阳 (1963), as well as a cosmologically themed, silent-era film made in Shanghai, 盘丝洞 (1927) at the New York Reception for 14th Shanghai Biennale: Cosmos Cinema curated by e-flux.
His work explores the possibilities of manipulating human perception of time and space. Implementing architecture, light, fog, sound, improvisation, composition, and collaboration manifest in scenarios of alternative realities and the future of humanity. Creating an immersive environment from his imagination, he allows each individual to experience his works by following their own paths through their imagination and physical engagement.
