Reflecting on CV and Online Presence

I think in this unit, both the CV and the Online Presence are often mentioned and discussed and are integral to the hand-in. It makes me think about the most effective way I could present myself to other people and inform people who I was and who I want to be. I think more and more clearly as I start having meetings with people in the music industry about my future career, that I don’t really need a CV at all but the online presence is so important if I want to be signed as an artist. I have so far never been asked here in the UK to provide my CV for any creative jobs, all the gigs and performances I got was through people knowing what I do. While the CV was more helpful to me when I was in Hong Kong, I am sure if I were to get projects funded for my sound work or a teaching job, I would need the CV to do its magic. But for now, let’s reflect a bit more on my presence in London, online or community based.

I have now been here in London for almost three years, I have made my own web of networks with various fields and groups: dancers, fashion people, musicians, sound artists, etc; and Asian communities, Queer communities on the intersectionality front. All these people sort of overlap one way or another and they all had been very kind to me. I think I have established very early on my style as a performer and what I am capable of bringing into the productions I’ve been involved so far, with working for artists like Agnes?, Magnus Westwell, Lucinda Chua, Bianca Scout and so on. I was quite lucky really, with opportunities, and I think people accept the fact that if you involve me into your projects, I will certainly bring in a very strong character of myself, whether it is dace, sound or my voice. This presence is then amplified by social media, with people being to see who I am connected to and have been collaborating with through my posts. And with pictures it is really easy to exhibit a sense of style as well, visually and sonically.

But back to the CV, I think the session with Zoe (is it?) really helped clear up ways we can approach structuring our own CV. It was great that she said the CV should be nothing but helpful to you, it should show what you want to show in order to achieve your own personal goals. This applies to the whole unit in a very helpful way, I think this might be quite obvious but the anxiety of being a (nearly) fresh grad is scary and we put ourselves out there out of fear; but it is important to remember our own strengths and use this opportunity to celebrate our youth (ha) and passion (while we still have plenty).

The thing I can do better is with numbers, right now not many people actually listen to my own music. I think in the next two months I need to start doing more gigs as myself the singer-songwriter, with Iklectik in April and Norwich in May, I will start planning more performances after the break to start building up my audience once again and hopefully get some more streams online. This is also a great opportunity for me to invite A&R people to come see me perform, rather than cold emails, this way they can still feel like they have discovered my music. I also am thinking once I am connected to these people, I should invite them to LCC and have a listening session on the Octaphonic Ring in Performance Lab. I have been mixing my “pop” songs on that and they sound great. This might just be a gimmick to industry people, but it is important for me to find new ways to present my music as it is quite different from what’s out there currently. Looking at the game put out by Radiohead when they re-release Kid A and Amnesiac and the Björk 360 exhibition, there is a need for us artists to think of new ways to release music.