Blind Opera

Music, Body, and Architecture Improvisation Workshop · 2025

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Work Title: Blind Opera
Performance Date: March 15, 2025
Venue: Music Cube, Cadillac·Shanghai Concert Hall
Festival: 2025 Music Technology Innovation Festival, Shanghai Concert Hall
Follow-up Presentation: June 9–14, 2025, at the ICMC 50th Anniversary Conference in Boston, USA

Opening: Six performers wearing eyeless programmed masks and black clothing stand still inside and outside the theater, establishing interaction with the audience.
Activation: After a tambourine cue, the performers “wake up,” and the masks trigger different electronic sounds through movement and contact with obstacles.
Development: Performers navigate by sound and explore the venue through amplified body movements, including climbing, stretching, and collapsing actions.
Ending: Performers gather at center stage to form an acoustic resonance field, presenting a special sound field generated by the coupling of algorithm, space, and body.

2020: Han Xu entered a U.S. contemporary art museum with sounding masks and was removed, becoming a key origin point of the project.
2020: A body-based performance at Shanghai Powerlong Museum further practiced the idea that “participation is creation.”
2025: Blind Opera premiered at Shanghai Concert Hall, integrating sound, space, and body through technological masks.

Technical Framework: Each mask embeds FM sound algorithms with gyroscope, light, and ultrasonic sensors to generate differentiated timbres in real time.
Core Metaphor: “Blindness” represents both visual deprivation and technological blinding, reflecting the tension between individuality and homogenization in the AI era.
Creative Approach: Scriptless and decentralized; space functions as the narrative body, while audience and performers co-create within the same interactive structure.