A hand holds a book surrounded by darkness. The title reads I Am the Performative Object.

Martin Sigler: I Am the Performative Object

I Am the Performative Object
Lin Chiwei, Cedrik Fermont,
Martin Sigler + Damsel Elyisum
Sat 10 October 2026, 7pm

I Am the Performative Object is a dynamic rush of late afternoon and evening performances that close the public event programme of Present Tense.

Residency, day pass and evening ticket holders can take part in a performance of Lin Chiwei's Tape Score project. Chiwei is making scores that are not written instructions but protocols, objects and devices: ribbons embroidered with syllables, knotted cords, strings of coloured beads, grid systems. Chiwei’s scores set up a shared temporal framework in which music emerges from rhythmic entrainment, bodies falling into time with one another, becoming conditions for other bodies. To take part, no previous experience with performance or singing is required. Ticket holders join the afternoon rehearsals from 3pm and perform at 6pm. To find out more email info@field-studies.org.

Berlin-based writer Martin Sigler presents a new fable exploring collection, preservation and adaptation at a time when the world is facing a host of realities that end in ‘-cide’. Using prose poetry to bring this present reality into the room, Martin will be accompanied by Damsel Elysium, his artistic collaborator of recent years, who will create an original, semi-improvised soundtrack for the work.

Belgian-Congolese musician, composer and researcher Cedrik Fermont brings a performance that is part documentary, part improvisation, part abstraction, moving between recognisable sounds and unfamiliar sonic landscapes. A kind of cinema for the ears that contains abstract elements where voice, memory, place and movement become the material for a live, ever-changing sound experience.

Venue

Raleigh Chapel
138 Church Walk
London N16 8QQ

About Present Tense

Present Tense is a five-day teaching residency led by a group of international artists and practitioners that approaches performance not as the culmination of solitary practice, but as a form of group research and collective practice.

In the evenings, the programme opens to a public audience with a series of events featuring performances by the artists and work created with participants during daytime workshops. Download the full Present Tense timetable.

Present Tense opens on Wednesday 7 October 2026, 10am and closes on Sunday 11 October 2026 in the afternoon. Download the timetable. The fee for the full five-day workshop and evening programme is £415. The number of students admitted to the full programme is limited to 25. A limited number of day tickets are available for £90. Both five-day and day tickets include shared lunch and access to the public evening programme. Up to 50 participants can attend on any one day.

Featured Artists

Born in Taipei in 1971, Lin Chiwei is a transdisciplinary artist who received academic training in French literature, cultural anthropology and media art. Since the early 1990s, Lin has been involved in the Taiwanese counter-cultural scene. He was a founding member of noise band Z.S.L.O. and responsible for the programming of various alternative art festivals. At the same time, Lin explored the realms of religious music and art, notably temple sculpture and Taoist rituals, through intense research and field studies. These experiences, combined with his practice in noise performance and electronic music composition, developed into critical positions toward contemporary art practices. Since 2004, Lin has worked on the Tape Music and IDCM (Interhuman Dynamic Coordinated Models) series of works – synchronous protocols which allow individual autonomy in the forming of collective intelligence that leads to complex sound works. In his 2012 book Beyond Sound Art – The Avant Garde, Sound Machine and the Modernity of Hearing, Lin denies the term ‘Sound Art,’ and provides a holistic view blurring the boundary between human culture and technology. Lin’s art works were shown in various biennales and museums including Tate Modern, Pompidou Center, PSA Shanghai along with other non-art sites including local community projects, private residences, public schools, factories, churches, temples, bars and live venues in different countries around the world. Lin Chiwei lives and works in Shanghai, Taipei, and Paris.

Damsel Elysium (they/them) is the solo project of UK-based multidisciplinary artist, multi-instrumentalist and composer Djenaba Davis-Eyo. Working across sound, video and performance, their intuitive and improvisational practice explores the body, space, object and the metaphysical, drawing on somatic techniques, ancestral knowledge and the subconscious. Their work moves between experimental sound, contemporary classical, electronics and performance, often approaching performance as ritual and the stage as altar. Their work has appeared at Tate Modern, Southbank Centre, the V&A and Fondation Beyeler.

Martin Sigler is a Berlin-based writer specialising in culture, philosophy, and identity. His work focuses on the everyday, offering pragmatic approaches to how Black individuals can emancipate themselves today. After completing a Master's degree in Culture, Criticism and Curation at Central Saint Martins, he published I Am the Performative Object, a book exploring the articulation between performative objects and the construction of Black identity.

Born in Lubumbashi, Cedrik Fermont is a Berlin-based Belgian-Congolese composer, musician, mastering engineer, author, radio host, curator and independent researcher. Since 1989, he has worked across the fields of noise, electronic and electroacoustic music, sound art and free improvisation. He runs the label and platform Syrphe, whose main focus is on sound art, electronic music, free improvisation and electroacoustic music from Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as his personal projects. Cedrik works as a solo artist and in numerous collaborative projects and bands across several continents. His tours and ongoing research have led him to perform and give talks in 72 countries across Eurasia, Africa and the Americas. He also composes music for sound installations, theatre and choreography. Cedrik has written several essays, as well as the book Not Your World Music: Noise Music in South-East Asia, co-written with Dimitri della Faille. The book was awarded the 2017 Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in the Digital Musics & Sound Art category. In 2024, he was awarded the Kunstpreis Berlin – Jubiläumsstiftung 1848/1948 in Berlin.