NEW YORK, NY – October 28, 2026 – In electronic music, the DJ usually commands the spotlight. Behind the booth, however, another kind of performance is unfolding. Visual artists manipulate images in real time, construct digital environments and shape how audiences experience sound. Their work can define an entire night, yet the artists themselves often remain out of view.

On Oct. 17, APOCRYPHA set out to challenge that hierarchy.

Co-presented by Brooklyn-based collective common.wavs, How To Human Inc and Vignette Rhythm, the event brought 12 DJ sets and nine VJ sets to Planet X Studios, where a 50-foot LED screen, Dolby Atmos surround sound and dynamic lighting transformed a working film studio into an immersive audiovisual environment. The lineup combined 16 artists selected from 330 applications worldwide with the event’s hosts and invited guests, performing for approximately 300 attendees.

More than a showcase of electronic music and digital art, APOCRYPHA posed a question about contemporary nightlife: Who gets to be seen, and whose creative labor remains behind the scenes?

For SLEEPYLYCHEE (Yuwei Shang), founder of common.wavs, the question emerged from years of performing internationally and observing how nightlife presents its artists. Visual performers and lighting designers are essential to the atmosphere of electronic music, yet rarely receive the recognition afforded to DJs.

Born in Wuhan, China, and now based in Brooklyn, Shang has performed more than 100 shows internationally, developing a techno sound rooted in heavy bass, tribal rhythms and industrial textures. In June, Mixmag Asia selected her as one of its monthly artist picks, highlighting her community-building efforts through common.wavs, which supports New York’s local artists and venues.

Founded by Shang with co-founder Lin Feng (Feng Lin), common.wavs operates at the intersection of music and visual art, creating opportunities for artists to perform, collaborate and experiment. APOCRYPHA extended that mission by giving DJs and VJs equal billing and a shared stage, while providing emerging talent access to production infrastructure usually associated with major festivals and commercial events.

The collective’s co-founder, Lin Feng, a digital artist and VJ, brought a complementary perspective shaped by contemporary digital art. Born in Shanghai and based in New York, Feng holds an MFA in Digital Arts from Pratt Institute. Her practice explores collective memory, liminal spaces and the traces embedded in objects and environments, drawing inspiration from urban exploration and experiences of moving between cities.

Her work has been exhibited in Shanghai, Tokyo and New York. She has also created visuals for New York Fashion Week runway shows and served as VJ for singer FiFi Zhang’s U.S. tour in 2026. At APOCRYPHA, Feng co-produced the event, performed a VJ set at 10:30 p.m. and closed the night’s visual program.

Together, Shang and Feng approached the event from two sides of the same creative ecosystem: one rooted in electronic music and community organizing, the other in experimental visual practices. Their collaboration positioned visual performance not as decoration, but as an artistic discipline in its own right.

That philosophy carried into the event’s visual identity, developed by Run Wu, founder of How To Human Inc. A Chinese-Australian interdisciplinary digital artist, filmmaker and commercial director based between Paris and London, Wu has worked at the intersection of art and technology since 2013. His cyber-influenced aesthetic combines elaborate 3D modeling and dense animation to construct striking digital worlds.

Wu designed APOCRYPHA’s poster and promotional visuals, then traveled from London to host the event and perform a VJ set on Planet X’s monumental screen. He also created 80 custom 3D-printed knuckle rings, distributed free to attendees, engraved with How To Human Inc’s motto: “光荣进化,” or “Glorious Evolution.”

The small objects gave the night’s speculative vision a physical form, something participants could carry beyond the fleeting experience of a live performance.

The venue itself was equally important to the event’s ambition. Voulez Vu, a New York-based multidisciplinary artist working across filmmaking, 3D and visual effects, helped make the production possible through his role as a core member of Planet X Studios. He also leads Vignette Rhythm, a techno collective combining immersive stage design, live visuals and electronic music.

Working as both DJ and VJ, Vu creates rendered environments that move between organic forms and industrial and architectural structures. He hosted APOCRYPHA and performed in both disciplines, with the gathering also marking his birthday celebration.

It was common.wavs’ second event at Planet X. On June 20, the collective co-produced the sold-out SIMULACRUM with We Are The Future Party. APOCRYPHA built on that collaboration, but introduced a more open approach to curating its performers.

Opening the stage beyond established networks

On Oct. 6, the organizers launched an international open call for DJs and VJs. Within a week, they received 330 applications.

“We’re grateful to every artist who trusted us with their work,” the organizers said. “Those 330 applications weren’t just a number to us. They were an act of trust.”

The resulting program featured 16 artists selected through the open call, performing alongside the event’s hosts and invited guests. Together, they represented a range of practices across techno, experimental electronic music and digital visual culture.

Among them was Brooklyn producer, synthesist and DJ Janus Rose, who delivered a live hardware set. Drawing on cyberfeminism and queer rave culture, Rose has produced club music using everything from modular synthesizers to a Nintendo Game Boy. She has performed internationally and also works as a journalist and editor at VICE/Motherboard.

The event’s spotlight visual artist, Suki Violet Su, offered a different approach to speculative imagery. Originally from Shenzhen and now based in New York, Su creates 3D artworks, music videos and conceptual films that reinterpret mythology and legend through science-fiction aesthetics and otherworldly figures.

The DJ lineup also featured Alissa Brianna, whose years of work supporting parties at Nowadays and across New York reflect another essential, often overlooked dimension of nightlife: the labor of sustaining the communities and spaces where music culture develops.

Performances ran from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m., followed by an open-deck session inviting other DJs and VJs in attendance to participate. What began as a curated program ended with a more fluid exchange between performers and audience, extending the event’s commitment to creative access beyond its official lineup.

A future outside the canon

The name APOCRYPHA refers to writings excluded from an accepted canon that nevertheless continued to circulate. The organizers borrowed that idea to describe “a gathering outside the official world” and “a future that hasn’t been authorised.”

The reference resonates with the realities of independent electronic music and digital art, where artistic visibility often depends on access to professional networks, expensive technology and established cultural platforms. Yet many of the practices that shape these scenes emerge outside those structures, sustained by independent communities and informal collaboration.

APOCRYPHA did not erase those barriers. With 330 applicants and only 16 artists selected through the open call, access remained limited. But by combining an international open call, professional production facilities and an open stage, the organizers demonstrated how existing resources could be used to create new opportunities.

The event’s larger significance lay in that approach. Rather than treating technological spectacle as an end in itself, APOCRYPHA placed the artists and relationships behind it at the center.

The phrase engraved on Wu’s rings, “Glorious Evolution,” offered a fitting conclusion to the night. For the people behind APOCRYPHA, the future of electronic culture is not defined solely by bigger screens or more sophisticated equipment. It is also shaped by who has the opportunity to create, collaborate and be recognized.

And that future, as the event’s name suggests, does not necessarily have to wait for anyone’s permission.

Full Artist Lineup

DJs: Sky Jing Lee, Forin, Lun★, Jaeku, Keiko, SLEEPYLYCHEE, Voulez Vu, Alissa Brianna, Janus Rose (live hardware set), Vivaval, Stealthy00, Elladotnet.

VJs: Permian Strata, VJ EliQ, Starlybri, Lin Feng (Feng Lin), Yiting Liu, Run Wu, Voulez Vu, Suki Violet Su, AJ the VJ.

About APOCRYPHA

APOCRYPHA was co-presented by common.wavs, How To Human Inc and Vignette Rhythm on Oct. 17, 2026, at Planet X Studios in Brooklyn, New York. Featuring artists selected through an international open call alongside the event’s hosts and invited guests, the event explored new approaches to audiovisual performance, artistic collaboration and community-driven electronic culture.

Media Contact
Company Name: common.wavs
Contact Person: Yuwei Shang
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: https://commonwavs.club/