“Take your time ... hurry-up!”

is a sentence from the Nirvana song "Come as you are". This song represents a time in my life, where I felt very happy to be who I am – which happens to me much more infrequently nowadays. When I and my friends were teenagers, we enjoyed exploring ourselves – we did not have fears for failure – we saw only a huge potential of our own youth and the life in front of us. Thus I wanted to turn that feeling of unexplored potential into my own research with the bass flute. This is also the reason why I selected the miniature form, as it, just like adolescence, does not have the ability to express a great depth, but carries within itself a kind of aphorism of the joy of living. In addition, the 9 miniatures, each with its own very particular character, are like the many interests/ambitions we had as teenagers, most of which we stopped pursuing at some point in our lives.

My intention was not to make an obvious quotation of Nirvana’s song. I generally find quotes pointless, as very often the references tend to be extremely personal and not recognized by the broader audience. Especially after a while, popular songs, books, paintings… etc. of a particular time are forgotten. What remains, however, is the overall emotion we relate to a particular person, event, object, or aesthetic experience from a specific moment of our lives. And that's exactly what I try to do with my references – extract the essence of my emotional response to works of others and infuse my own music with that particular essence. Surely there are also some semantical connections (like the words time , hurry-up ) that were applied as a part of musical material. To create the form, I also used elements of the Nirvana melody, very much like the renaissance composers did with Cantus Firmus, it was an abstract basis used for construction of something else. The use of electronics also has an internal narrative – starting with almost no electronic treatment (just a bit of reverb), all the way to almost exclusively electronics (the flute only plays breathing noises).

—Davor Vincze

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" There is nothing special about me. I do not consider myself particularly exotic or peculiar. But I am often confused, confounded by my own vagueness and ashamed of my own resistance against being named. I look around, and find myself perfectly attuned to the surroundings, in fact, sometimes too comfortable. And I look around again, this time noticing that I was unseen, or, to put it more precisely, seen with a kind of politeness and indifference with which a foreigner would have been seen by a very civilized local. I look around. Where am I?

Where am I? I am curling in a cheap vintage leatherette armchair in my LA apartment looking out at the January rain, pit-a-pat-ing on palm foliage. I am on the train from Genève across Switzerland conversing with a fellow passenger, a peasant who has the genuine passion for the Alps. I am walking across the plaza in front of the theatre of Taipei where I frequented hundreds of times growing up, feeling at home and at once lost. I am in an alley near Gare du Nord in Paris, late at night, with my suitcase, and a transient youth just stuck a gum on my hair. I am in a bookstore in Boston; the afternoon of the first snow, I am waiting for a friend.

Where am I? I am in a place others call Motherhood. I am in a generation our society calls Millennials (or Generation Z, or…). I am in a box the social science identifies as Immigrant. I am on a path I myself claim as Art and Life but others don’t. I am in the middle of discovering the whole world through a film (or a music, or a book). I am here, there, everywhere, nowhere. People say I am here, there, everywhere, nowhere. "

—Mu-Xuan Lin

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Quant à moi, il n’y a rien spécial. Je ne me considère pas particulièrement exotique ou hors commun. Mais je suis souvent confondue, embrouillée par ma propre imprécision et honteuse de ma résistance à être nommée. Je regarde autour de moi, et me trouve parfaitement en harmonie avec les environs, en fait, parfois trop confortable. Et, je regarde de nouveau, cette fois-ci remarquant que j’étais invisible, ou, pour le dire plus précisément, aperçue avec une sorte de politesse et indifférence dans la manière laquelle un étranger aurait été vu par une personne du quartier. Je regarde autour de moi. Où suis-je?

Où suis-je? Je me pelotonne dans un fauteuil vintage pas cher en simili-cuir chez moi à Los Angeles, en regardant la pluie de janvier qui tapote sur les feuilles des palmiers. Je suis dans le train de Genève en traversant la Suisse, où je discute avec un passager, un paysan qui est véritablement passionné par les Alpes. Je suis en train de traverser la place devant le théâtre de Taipei, que j’ai fréquenté des centaines de fois, en grandissant, me sentant chez moi et soudain toute perdue. Je suis dans une ruelle près de la Gare du Nord à Paris, tard dans la nuit, avec ma valise, et un jeune passant vient de coller son chewing-gum sur mes cheveux. Je suis dans une librairie à Boston, l’après-midi où la première neige arrive, j’attends un ami.

Où suis-je? Je suis dans un endroit qu’on l’appelle Motherhood*. Je suis issue d’une génération que notre société appelle Millennials (ou la Génération Z, ou...). Je suis dans une boîte que les sciences sociales identifient comme immigrant. Je suis en voyage dans lequel j’explore la vie par la valeur d’art, mais les autres ne sont pas d’accord. Je suis en train de découvrir le monde entier par le biais d’un film (ou une musique, ou un livre). Je suis ici, là-bas, partout, nulle part. On dit que je suis ici, là-bas, partout, nulle part.

(Traduction : Shao-Wei Chou)