April 11, 2026 | 2:30PM
Logan Center for the Arts, Penthouse 901
From Scratch
Victoria Shen a.k.a. Evicshen
Sound Artist
From Scratch traces the artistic trajectory of Evicshen, a sound artist and experimental music performer who approaches turntablism as a material practice to be dismantled, rebuilt, and reimagined. Through self-built instruments, modified turntables, and unconventional sound objects, her work expands the physical and conceptual boundaries of performance. The talk follows her early encounters with experimental music and the DIY ethos that led her to learn electronics and fabricate her own tools for sound production. By constructing instruments from scratch, she treats technology not as a fixed system but as a mutable medium for artistic inquiry.
Evicshen also situates her sonic practice within a broader art historical lineage, drawing connections between experimental music and movements such as abstract expressionism and modernism in the visual arts. Ideas of gesture, materiality, and process become translated into sound through physical performance and custom-built apparatuses. The talk explores how these visual art traditions inform her compositional thinking and performance strategies. Ultimately, From Scratch presents instrument building and performance as intertwined acts of experimentation, where sound emerges through the direct manipulation of materials, bodies, and machines.
About Victoria Shen
Victoria Shen is a sound artist, experimental music performer, and instrumentmaker based in San Francisco.
Shen’s sound practice is concerned with the spatiality/physicality of sound and its relationship to the human body. Her music features analog modular synthesizers, vinyl/resin records, and self-built electronics. Eschewing conventions in harmony and rhythm in favor of extreme textures and gestural tones, Shen uses what she calls “chaotic sound” to oppose signal and information, eluding traditionally embedded meaning.
Shen’s multimedia practice extends beyond musical composition and performance to include installation and non-traditional methods of distribution. Her DIY approach to deconstructing the concepts of “materiality, value and mass production” both integrate and re-contextualize the formats of the readymade and assemblage techniques. For example, the album art for her debut LP, Hair Birth, utilizes copper to transform the cover into a loudspeaker through which the record can be played. For recent performances, she pioneered the use of Needle Nails, acrylic nails with embedded turntable styluses, which allow her to play up to 5 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.
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This event is part of Critical Sounds, a symposium and festival exploring the intersection of sound studies, electroacoustic music, and experimental performance. Bridging academic inquiry with artistic practice, the program features a keynote lecture, live performances, practice-based research, and workshops—including a special session with Chicago’s own DJ Lady D. All events are free and open to the public. View the full schedule of events.
Presented by SPIL, the Department of Music, Arts + Public Life, GLPAC & Arts Incubator, and Patchbent at Experimental Sound Studio (ESS)