In her live performances, she proposes an exploration between meaning and non-meaning through the physical activation of noise tropes. For recent performances, she pioneered the use of Needle Nails, acrylic nails with embedded turntable styluses, which allow her to play up to five tracks of a record at once. Needle Nails, Levitating speaker, and her Noise Combs are some of the objects created by her as part of an extensive repertoire of innovations in the design of sound augmentation. These sculptural elements invite the viewer to unpack one’s relationship with the material possibilities for creating sound. The appendage-like instruments and objects she makes, exemplify Shen’s ability to embody through sound her interest in the tension created by opposition: control and chaos, the unique and the mass produced, the practical and the absurd.
Victoria Shen(A.K.A. Evicshen) is a sound artist, experimental music performer, and instrument-maker based in San Francisco, CA.
Shen has performed solo across North America, Japan, China, Mexico, Australia/NZ, the UK, and Europe, as a member of the turntable trio with Mariam Rezaei and Maria Chavez, as a member of hip hop group 1 Above Minus Underground. Shen has also collaborated with Mix Master Mike of the Beastie Boys and groups such as the Kronos Quartet, Matmos, clipping, Acid Mothers Temple, and Mike Watt and the Missing Men. Some notable venues in which she has performed include Boston City Hall, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, ISSUE Project Room NY, DOMMUNE Tokyo, Petreon Sculpture Park Cyprus, MUNCH Museum Oslo, Art Gallery of NSW Sydney, and Museo d'Arte Orientale Turin. Shen has also been an artist in residence at Elektronmusikstudion EMS Stockholm SE, WORM Rotterdam NL, Kurimanzutto New York US, The Royal Danish Academy Copenhagen DK, and AUDIUM San Francisco US, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Omaha US, and Headlands Center for the Arts US, and Audio Foundation Auckland NZ.
Shen currently works at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics Stanford and School of Visual Arts NY. Shen is also a serving member of the Board of Directors for The Lab in San Francisco.
