Altmusic: Betty Apple

Known for her powerful, often provocative live performance work and experimental projects, Betty Apple is one of the leading lights of from a younger generation of avant-garde artists in Taiwan.

Using body politics as her framework, Betty Apple’s focus is on performative, live sound art which flirts with abjection, noise and club culture. Drawing on her experience as a millennial living in post-colonial Taiwan, Betty Apple’s performances wrest sound from kitsch objects symbolic of consumer society – particularly mass-produced objects intended for eroticism or entertainment, such as vibrators, underwear and fluorescent paint, which are carried inside the body and expressed through violent and grotesque means.

Through these performances, Apple (de)constructs a chaotic and hysterical “noise text” that is created from input to output, distorted by dynamics introduced by humans as well as objects. Producing sound with her body, she creates an exciting, edgy atmosphere – an imploding wave of connection and mystery.

Deeply influenced by bedroom electronica and sub-culture, Betty Apple arrived at sound and composition by way of her background in theatre. She works with noise and range of aberrant texture, and is an accomplished producer of electronic music and DJ while also engaging in video art, performance art, and art curation. Born in 1986 in Chiayi, Taiwan, she received her B.A. in Theatre and M.A. in New Media Art at the Taipei National University of the Arts.