XUE is an eponymous surrogate for Singaporean artist and butoh dancer Sher Chew — a conductor of clandestine realities, activated through rave sensibilities, live performance, sound collaborations and video work. XUE is interested in the economy of the self as mediated through technology. Their work unpacks the tenous allure of the posthuman fantasy as a means of recognizing or transcending one’s body. XUE cultivates methods of aesthetic production as intervention, wielding an impressionistic style of world building as a form of critical inquiry. Motifs of ‘captivity’ or ‘entrapment’ are prevalent in XUE’s worlds — post-lingual spaces often involving silent or disarticulate bodies routinely subject to invisible restrictions.
Practice:
XUE’s practice is in enacting and unearthing new mythologies, as a means of reclaiming personal and cultural identities. XUE’s pieces are mostly endurance based, governed by strict rubrics that gradually open themselves up to improvisation. The rule-driven nature of these frameworks reveal and interrogate deeply embedded systems of control. By designing systems that challenge one’s physical and spatial limitations, XUE is committed to unscripting the socialized body; creating opportunities for radical physical vocabularies to emerge as the body cedes to a state of surrender.
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