Juan Carlos Vasquez, Assistant Professor of Computation and Design at Duke Kunshan University, participated in MUSICACOUSTICA-HANGZHOU 2026, held from September 22 to 27 in Hangzhou, China. During the festival, he served on the jury for the Composition Competition Finals and presented his audiovisual work Rorschach’s Garden V2 in concert.
Hosted by the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, the festival brought together participants from China and abroad. Its Composition Competition was jointly organized with the Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce and held alongside the 5th Global Digital Trade Expo 2026.
Vasquez joined the competition jury at the invitation of Prof. Zhang Xiaofu, a leading figure in Chinese electroacoustic music. The panel included professors from national conservatories in China as well as established figures in music technology from around the world.
Later that evening, Vasquez took part in the festival from a different perspective, presenting Rorschach’s Garden V2, an AI-assisted audiovisual work created with Álvaro Collar, Executive Dean at Stirling College, Chengdu University. The two collaborate under the collective 4MA::STRATA.
The work has previously been exhibited internationally, including at Ars Electronica in Austria and at festivals in Vietnam, Brazil, Korea, Spain, and Germany.
For Vasquez, MUSICACOUSTICA-HANGZHOU also creates opportunities for continued exchange between electroacoustic music communities in China and abroad. “Events like MUSICACOUSTICA-HANGZHOU are a genuine bridge between Chinese and Western practitioners in this field,” he said, emphasizing the role of such events in supporting continued dialogue and mutual growth.
His participation as both a jury member and an artist engaging with emerging talent while also sharing new creative work. It also connected DKU’s Computation and Design program with the festival’s international network in experimental digital art creation.
