Re: [-empyre-] Hi from Seoul.

[YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES <tfa@chollian.net>]

Hi Mathieu,

Music is a funny thing. It can make everything seem different, better, more
emotional. It can change the mundane into the exceptional. It can make
something, a place and a person, become memorable if not unforgettable.

Background music, in a movie, a waiting room, or an elevator, adds an
element of complexity to what would otherwise be just a visual experience.
The moment we realized that the Web could be an audiovisual experience, we
couldn't figure out why anyone would skip the music. O.K., you'd skip it
because the file would be too heavy. For us, though, since we believe that
music is like a drug that makes everything better -- even art; O.K., maybe
some art is beyond redemption -- we were willing to sacrifice other minor
things, like images.

>From your comments, it seems the music in our work has succeeded in a few of
these ways. It has made the text seem better. It has persuaded you that it
was really, thoughtfully  coupled with the text. That's good, and we're
happy. Thanks for sharing this with us.

An on-the-spot survey of the 59 pieces/versions on our site shows that 44
songs are "Black American,", 10 are "Korean/American," and 5 are "White
American." Those numbers will, in the coming months, tip more toward
"Korean/American," since YHCHI has and will continue to make its own music.

For instance, here's one of our new pieces that we invite you to see/hear
for the first time online:

http://www.yhchang.com/SUPER_SMILE.html

We thank CACSA, in South Australia, and its director Alan Cruickshank for
inviting us to show the piece offline.

"How does the music we choose or make influence the ideas?" Well, first of
all, there aren't any ideas in our work -- at least not if we can help it.
O.K., a few slip in here and there, but we're trying our best to avoid them.
CUNNLINGUS is an exception -- but then, we didn't write that piece, the Dear
Leader did. We don't work with ideas. We're not smart enough to do that or
to think that our ideas can interest anyone. We work instead with a few
images that pop up in either of our heads, then we run with them, and in the
wrong direction, unless we make a mistake. Ideas in art are boring, from
what we've seen. Incoherence, confusion, wrongness, accident, stupidity --
especially stupidity -- these are the elements of our work. It's fun.

Who said "Beau, comme la rencontre fortuite sur une table de dissection
d'une machine à coudre et d'un parapluie"? "Beautiful, like the chance
encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table"?
Anyway, that pretty much sums up how we put together music and text.

What saves the patient from sure death is the same thing that saves a
painting: the frame, or, in our case, the digital frame, the browser window
and the computer screen. In both cases, the frame makes everything so
convincing. 

As for http://www.yhchang.com/URGENT_REQUEST.html, well, we're a business.
We're trying, like a lot of people, to make money while we sleep. To make
our investment work for us. Etc.

Young-hae and Marc



On 5/3/05 5:41 PM, "Mathieu O'Neil" <oneil@homemail.com.au> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> In a roundabout way, I was getting at the music, rhythm of your work. I
> was wondering how you saw it in relation to the text - contrast,
> background/foreground, distancing; also the specific pieces you use are
> very "Western", black-american, ex-hipster forms. How do they relate to
> being Korean, or in Korea? And how does a particular musical piece
> influence the ideas expressed? (I'm assuming the music comes first, may
> be wrong.)
> 
> Also: I went and had a look at your site and saw a piece I didn't know
> - "Urgent Request" - which nicely satirizes the net spam scams - yet
> poses the question of how net artists make a living... seems to be a
> new positioning of your own economic situations?
> 
> Mathieu
> 
> ps. It's probably obvious but what the hey: I also find your work very
> satisfying in many ways.
> 
> On 03/05/2005, at 1:37 PM, YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Seoul isn't interested in jazz -- unless you consider Kenny G as jazz.
>> 
>> For our money, Korean musical genius is in "pansori" and "pungtchak."
>> Their
>> sounds, unique and unmistakable, invite improvisation and soulfulness
>> on
>> famous standards such as "Arirang."
>> 
>> Young-hae and Marc
>> 
>> On 5/2/05 10:32 PM, "Mathieu O'Neil" <oneil@homemail.com.au> wrote:
>> 
>>> Uh... jazz? What's the be-bop scene like in Seoul?
>>> Cheers
>>> M
>>> 
>>> On 02/05/2005, at 6:07 PM, YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Thanks, Michael,
>>>> 
>>>> We're open to discuss anything with anybody -- oh, except for sex,
>>>> politics,
>>>> money, ourselves, Internet technology, critical theory, including the
>>>> global
>>>> versus the local  trans-anything, post-everything, deconstruction,
>>>> nomadism,
>>>> gender, C, C++, Maya, claymation, GATS, intellectual copyrights, and
>>>> the
>>>> latest North Korean test missile. Shoot.
>>>> 
>>>> Young-hae and Marc
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
>>