R.H.Y. Yau

Randy H.Y. Yau is a sound artist, curator, designer and photographer who has been active in the sonic arts since 1993. He has produced multiple solo and collaborative audio works which have been distributed internationally. He has also performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, Peru, Australia, Taiwan and China. Yau founded and co-curates Activating the Medium, an annual sonic arts festival which traveled through Universities, museums and alternative art spaces across California including The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He also founded Auscultare Research, a record label releasing sound works from artists all over the world. He has conducted radio programs focused on sound art for over 15 years including “dARK mARKET bROADCAST” on KCPR, San Luis Obispo, and “The No Other Radio Network” on KPFA, Berkeley. Since 1999, Yau has served as Curatorial Director of 23five Incorporated and currently serves as the organization’s Executive Director. Yau holds a Bachelor of Science in Applied Art and Design from California Polytechnic State University. He currently resides in San Francisco.

Yau’s sonic recordings are inspired by actionism and the processes of musique concrète. But bored by the genre’s academic cliques, Yau creates what he calls “action-concrete.” All sonic incidents become events of collected actions—undiluted vocalism, physicality, angst, humor, absurdity and abject actionism, along with microscopic recordings of raw materials such as meat, bones, skin, fluid, food, body, etc. These organic synapses are then combined with raw electronics to sound experiences of both ultra-violence and absolute absurdity at its most base level.

Yau’s solo performances are purely focused on physicality—physicality of sound, space, body, and voice. Based purely on feedback, voice, body positioning, spatial movement and characteristics of the acoustic space, Yau sculpts dense sonic and performative compositions. Using only a small handheld device, Yau transforms simple feedback tones into intricately rhythmic timbres and highly dynamic dissonance with poise and action.