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THE MYSTERIOUS MR. ASHLEY
Feature Article

THE MYSTERIOUS MR. ASHLEY

Robert Ashley is widely considered one of the great American composers of the post-Cage generation. Ashley created radical new forms of opera, incorporating electronic music and pioneering the use of opera in television. His multimedia projects expanded upon the form in surprising, often perplexing ways. Kurt Gottschalk spoke to Ashley in 2013 for a major feature in the 13th issue of White Fungus. At the time, Ashley was working on his opera Quicksand, which he completed before his passing in March 2014. The article can now be read online.
Yao Jui-Chung, "Republic of Cynic: 1989" (2020) (still). Courtesy the artist.
Territorial Pissing
Feature Article

Territorial Pissing

Interrogations of Social, Political, and Historical Space in the Work of Yao Jui-Chung
Yao Jui-Chung is one of Taiwan’s most prolific and esteemed contemporary artists. In 2020, White Fungus editor Ron Hanson interviewed Yao for a major profile on the occasion of the artist’s mid-career retrospective, Republic of Cynic, at C-LAB in Taipei. The feature was to be published in a new online Japanese art magazine commissioned by a Tokyo art collector. After the project was aborted due to a clash over the publication’s title, this profile sat dormant in our archives for almost four years. It has now been published for the first time.
A spectacled flying-fox (pteropus conspicillatus) feeding on blue quandong fruit (elaeocarpus Grandis) in australia. Copyright Merlin Tuttle’s bat conservation.
Batlove Redux
Feature Article

Batlove Redux

Urgent Praise for our Winged Kin
In the wake of the Covid pandemic, bats have once again been unfairly maligned. As the go-to scapegoat of choice for many, some even called for the mammals’ eradication. In Batlove Redux, Tessa Laird, author of the book Bat, part of Reaktion’s much-loved Animal series, mounts an impassioned defense of these marvelous creatures. Laird celebrates bats, recalling art and literature inspired by the mammals, while raising the alarm over their plight amidst a warming planet. She recalls her own heartbreaking experiences volunteering to rescue flying-foxes during forest fires at Yarra Bend Park in Australia.

Spin into Being
Feature Article

Spin into Being

The Art of Melati Suryodarmo
Kyra Kordoski speaks to performance artist Melati Suryodarmo and dives into her deep corpus of durational works.
Vocalizing cotton-top tamarin
The Pleasure Principle: Part One
Feature Article

The Pleasure Principle: Part One

The World of Animal Music
Do animals create and enjoy music on a similar level to humans? Or are their magnificent displays of sound merely functional? Tobias Fischer, co-editor of the book Animal Music, lays out the arguments for and against, drawing upon a trove of research and creative works by artists and scientists alike.
Betty Apple (鄭宜蘋) performing at Sublate, presented by Liquid Architecture and White Fungus, at Korner, Taipei, 2017. Photo Etang Chen (陳藝堂).
Violent Mirage
Feature Article

Violent Mirage

Ritual and Action in the Performance of Betty Apple
Betty Apple is a musician and performance artist based in Taipei. Apple engages in what she terms "live art", intensely physical performances that deconstruct tightly composed constructions of corporeal and aural space. Advancing concepts of the feminine, Apple reworks the leftover rickety architecture of Taiwan's former military state while exploring new postcolonial subjectivities in its present reality, democracy saturated in hypercapitalism. Kyra Kordoski wrote about Apple's work for White Fungus.
Douglas Lilburn recording sounds in a barn, Wiltshire, England - Photograph taken by Peter Russell Crowe
Bird-like antique chatter
Feature Article

Bird-like antique chatter

mis-competence in New Zealand electronic music
Bruce Russell writes about the history of New Zealand DIY electronic music, which he argues sprang from a strategy of “mis-competence”. That is a deliberate misuse of instruments and audio equipment to achieve a sound beyond the machinations of the music industry. Misuse, Russell says, is the defining feature of New Zealand sound work. This article was originally commissioned in 2012 by White Fungus for the first issue of its sister publication The Subconscious Restaurant.
Carolee Schneemann "Meat Joy"
Double Knowledge
Feature Article

Double Knowledge

In Conversation with Carolee Schneemann
In one of her last major interviews, Carolee Schneemann spoke to White Fungus editor Ron Hanson and looked back on her life, stretching back to her early childhood drawings and adolescent adventures in Mexico.
Madou Daitian Temple (代天府), Tainan
Hell is the Main Attraction
Feature Article

Hell is the Main Attraction

A Photo Essay by Yao Jui-Chung
In this series of wide-angle polaroids, Yao Jui-Chung photographs Madou Temple's animatronic religious display and other similar depictions of hell from throughout Taiwan and Singapore.
Amazon Noir website screenshot
Subverting the Voice of God
Feature Article

Subverting the Voice of God

Troubling Materiality in Nicholas Thoburn’s Anti-Book
Nicholas Thoburn's "Anti-Book" is a 'book' that interrogates the book-form. In his critique of this beloved commodity, Thoburn challenges our understanding of books as transcendent moral and aesthetic objects unsullied by commerce. Rather, he says, books are pulsing with capitalist relations. Thoburn proposes instead a "communism of textual matter". White Fungus editor Ron Hanson has been corresponding with Thoburn and, in the first of a series of articles based on this communication, introduces Thoburn's concept of the anti-book and its historical precedents.
Max Richter and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) performing Sleep at Spring Studios, New York, 2018. Photos Mike Terry.
To Sleep, Perchance to Hear
Feature Article

To Sleep, Perchance to Hear

An Inquiry Concerning the Possibilities and Vagaries of Listening to Music while Sleeping — with Testimonial Consideration by Composers and Practitioners in the Field
Kurt Gottschalk attended a New York performance of Max Richter's SLEEP, in which audience members are invited to stay overnight at a concert, slowing down to share a collective, somatic experience of music. Gottschalk reported on the experience for White Fungus. Speaking to other composers on the topic, and revisiting historic works, he extended his inquiry to consider at length this different process of listening.
Wang Fujui at Subconscious Restaurant
Wang Fujui and the Fascination of Mysterious Sounds
Feature Article

Wang Fujui and the Fascination of Mysterious Sounds

Wang Fujui is one of the pioneers of Taiwanese noise music and sound art. Wang emerged in the 1990s during the explosion of Taiwanese experimental music following the lifting of martial law. In 1993, he founded NOISE, Taiwan's first zine and record label dedicated to experimental music. Wang's own work ranges from ecstatic extreme noise to sublime sound and light installations. Alistair Noble wrote about Wang's unique body of work for White Fungus.
Strange Days on Lake Rotomahana
Feature Article

Strange Days on Lake Rotomahana

The End of the Pink and White Terraces
New Zealand's Pink and White Terraces were dubbed the "8th wonder of the world." But in 1886, they were lost forever in a single night of violent volcanic destruction. Tim Bollinger wrote about the Terraces and their storied history for White Fungus.
Lin Chi-Wei, "Tape Music", simplified Chinese version, 2012, photo by Damien Owen Trainor
Reawakening the Killing-Tone
Feature Article

Reawakening the Killing-Tone

The Sound Art of Lin Chi-Wei
Lin Chi-Wei is a key member of the pioneering generation of Taiwanese noise/sound artists that emerged in the 1990s. Lin has made landmark contributions as a writer, performer, artist, and member of Z.S.L.O (Zero Sound Liberation Organization). In Lin’s Tape Work, the artist sits in the center of the audience and unfurls a tape of ribbon or paper upon which characters are hand-printed or embroidered. Passed hand to hand through the crowd, each audience member/participant vocalizes the succession of phonetic symbols. The result is the creation of a multi-headed human tape machine. In the Taiwanese-language version of the work, Lin reactivates the “killing tone” or (Rù tone 入聲) from the medieval Chinese seven-tone system.
Street scenes in front of the Legislative Yuan and surrounding area during the 520 Farmers Protest (520農民運動),Taipei, 1988. Photos Leon Tsai (蔡文祥).
Wasteland Utopia
Feature Article

Wasteland Utopia

The Liberation of Sound in Post–Martial Law Taiwan
Noise music in Taiwan emerged in the 1990s, a tumultuous period of social upheaval following the lifting of 38 years of martial law. In the frenzied atmosphere of street clashes and political demonstrations, artists explored previously taboo subjects and experimented with radical forms. It was in this context that Taiwan's noise movement was born. Jeph Lo witnessed the evolution and reflects on that messy but protean time. His article is accompanied by photographs of political demonstrations of the period by Leon Tsai and Tsai Ming-Te.
Paul Celan, 1941. Photographer unknown.
Making the Stones Sing
Feature Article

Making the Stones Sing

On the Centenary of Paul Celan
Paul Celan is often called the greatest of postwar European poets. Barry Schwabsky looks back on Celan's life and work following the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth, and the 50th of his death.
“Celebrations for the 9th anniversary of the People’s Republic”, Beijing, 1 October 1958
The Divisive Moment
Feature Article

The Divisive Moment

After 70 years, Henri Cartier-Bresson almost goes back to China
Henri Cartier-Bresson's photographs of the last days of the Chinese Civil War were exhibited at Taipei Fine Arts Museum in late 2020. The exhibition was scheduled to be held in Beijing in 2021 but was canceled due to COVID-19. David Frazier writes about the exhibition and its complicated surrounding context.
Techno pioneer Jeff Mills.
Human to Human
Feature Article

Human to Human

An Interview with Jeff Mills
Tobias Fischer speaks to techno pioneer Jeff Mills.
Bárbara Wagner_Benjamin de Burca_2017_Estás Vendo Coisas
you're subverting things
Feature Article

you're subverting things

the music video as an agent of empowerment in the works of bárbara wagner and benjamin de burca
The Brazil-based artist duo Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca produce films blurring the lines between fiction and documentary. Collaborating with their performers, often figures on the margins, the duo creates works that raise notions of visibility, self-representation, and subversion of dominant cultural forms. Marcella Faustini spoke to the artists and wrote about their work.
Kalisolaite ‘Uhila, “Pigs in the Yard”, 2011, documentation of performance, Aotea Square Performance Arcade, Auckland
The Pig and Its Friend
Feature Article

The Pig and Its Friend

Kalisolaite ʻUhila's Iconic Performance Work
Kalisolaite ‘Uhila is a Tongan performance artist based in New Zealand. In his 2011 work "Pigs in the Yard", 'Uhila challenged western notions and treatment of the pig. In traditional Tongan culture, the pig is sacred. 'Uhila's performance afforded pigs this reverence while challenging audiences to reappraise their relationship to these sentient creatures.
Pavel Pepperstein, ”Three old men talking and the Broken suprema”, 2015.
Once Upon a Time
Feature Article

Once Upon a Time

The Timeless Worlds of Pavel Pepperstein
Roger Boyce interviews Pavel Pepperstein for White Fungus. The enigmatic Russian painter of hallucinatory landscapes is also known as a writer, critic, art theorist, fashion designer, and rapper.
Slavs and Tatars, "A Monobrow Manifesto", 2011. Screen print on balloons, installation view at the Sharjah Biennale, 2011. Courtesy of The Third Line, Dubai. Photo: Elizabeth Rappaport.
A Kind of Circuity
Feature Article

A Kind of Circuity

An Interview with Slavs and Tatars
Nicola Trezzi interviewed Slavs and Tatars about topics ranging from pickles to the collective's embrace of antithetical thought.
Ghosts, Radio Waves, Spiritualism and Contextualism in the Art of Aki Onda
Feature Article

Ghosts, Radio Waves, Spiritualism and Contextualism in the Art of Aki Onda

Kurt Gottschalk talks to Aki Onda about channelling the spirit of Nam June Paik.
Listening to Tagaloa
Feature Article

Listening to Tagaloa

Channelling the Oceanic God’s Voice in the Work of Paula Schaafhausen
Leafa Wilson writes about Paula Schaafhausen's installation series Ebbing Tagaloa, featuring Tagaloa (Polynesian God of the Ocean) figures molded from coconut oil and sand.
The Residents and the Grand Theory of Obfuscation
Feature Article

The Residents and the Grand Theory of Obfuscation

Kurt Gottschalk writes about legendary San Francisco experimental music group The Residents.