Studio Zyklos

Studio ZYKLOS (Melody Chua, Chi Him Chik // AIYA, Aiii) is a collective of two artists coming from a practice of working with sonic improvisation machines and reflecting on the relationships that arise and become destabilized in human-machine constellations. On the one hand, this context views the machines as extensions of our human mind-bodies, but crucially on the other hand, it is intentionally a resistance against treating the non-human in the colonialistic sense of imposing our identities and control over them. Instead, the practice of improvising with machines is that of creating “resistance machines” that challenges human identities and languages. Through this practice, new sensitivities, ways of relating, and ways of knowing beyond the anthropologic gaze are formed. In the context of improvisation, the collective’s primary working method, this implies a confrontation and continual negotiation with uncertainties—a more-than-human dialogue of understanding that takes the form of music-making, translation, and movement across different bodies, both visible and invisible.