Sheng uses self-built granular synthesis software to create a dense soundscape inspired by Rothko’s Seagram Murals and was recently performed at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London at an evening of immersive sound and vision, in the form of an extended screening of absorbing, contemplative sound art and elastic, subsuming imagery.

Sheng explores ideas of how sound can be observed both intrinsically or extrinsically, and how surface textures can appear at the same time both solid and still allow the listener to enter the inside of the sound object. The piece uses thick blocks of sound, each made from tiny grains which like clouds encompass the listener; the edges of each cloud when listened to ‘from a distance’ seem solid, but on closer inspection blur from one into another and allow the listener to move between the droplets, entering inside each cloud. Each block of sound has its own timbral qualities and surface texture, which although share similar characteristics to one another, are still clearly defined; some objects push others out of their way, while others simultaneously transform from one into another.

Sheng aims to recreate the oceanic like experience of being surrounded by large shifting masses of colour and texture.