(Composer, Electronic Music)
A voice and a laptop, Ensemble of machines and humans
“In 2022, I had a solo performance in a long time, and I had the opportunity to create music without pressure, so the voice performance came naturally . I prepared for the performance by experimenting with my voice without any other vocalists and this is the sound I created for the show.”
Can you tell us about the most memorable sound in your life?
Coming from a religious background, the sounds I'm most familiar with are the ones I heard in church. I would go to church once a week and experience a huge amount of music, and I would embody that sound through choirs and piano accompaniment. After that, my most memorable sound experience was when I went to Berlin and Paris in 2019 to do soundscape work and research. There is a church in Paris where Olivier Messiaen played, and I happened to hear the organ playing. The experience of sound in that space, regardless of the music being played, was very powerful. Another experience was in a music listening room in Paju, South Korea. I didn't expect much, but the experience of the sound coming from the big, old speakers was really impressive. The first time I tried noise-canceling earphones was also very memorable. Usually, classical music is hard to hear in a noisy space like the subway, no matter how loud you play it. One day, I was walking to the subway platform, put on my noise-canceling earphones, and was very impressed by the experience of all the sound disappearing like it was being sucked into a vacuum cleaner.
When did you start learning to play the piano?
I started when I was 8 years old, and I played the piano every day by myself because I loved the sound of the piano from a young age. Actually, the piano I played as a child was not a real piano, it was a Dynaton, which is an electronic piano, and it has different sounds presets in it, so I practiced with it and found the right tone for the music, and that was an important experience.
Along the way, have you developed any tastes that distinguish between sounds you like and don't like?
I don't think I actually have a particular taste, taste is subjective and constantly changing, I think I'm very open-minded about sound and sometimes it's better to have no taste, for example, sometimes I like a well-mastered soundtrack and sometimes I like a cell phone recording that doesn't sound very good acoustically.
You majored in composition in college and went on to graduate school to study music technology. I've heard that you were interested in avant-garde music when you graduated from composition school, what curiosities led you to study music technology?
When I was in middle school, my music teacher suggested that I should major in music, so I went to an arts high school. I studied classical music at the arts high school and naturally went to the university's classical composition department, but I wasn't a huge fan of classical music like most classical music lovers. I listened to everything. When I got to university, I wanted to do film music or musical theater music, but I was studying contemporary music, which was interesting in its own way, but it didn't inspire me to study abroad after graduation or to continue with contemporary music more seriously. So in my last year of university, I started to think about what kind of music I wanted to do in the future.
At that time, I took classes from teachers who had studied in Lyon and IRCAM in France, and that was an important experience. He had studied electronic music in Europe, so his style was very different from the other teachers, and while taking lessons, I listened to a lot of different music, including music made at IRCAM, which sparked my curiosity about electronic music. At first, I thought I should study abroad. I started studying English, but I ended up looking up music online more than studying English. As I listened to a lot of electronic music, I thought, 'There is so much good music in the world.' I also encountered a lot of sound art works at the LG Arts Center, museums, and alternative spaces in front of Hongdae, and I was surprised to see audio-visual works that interacted with music, and I was surprised that there was a world like this. As I experienced a different world by visiting such performances, I naturally chose Music Technology Department in Korea National University of Arts instead of studying abroad.
It seems like you were naturally exposed to a lot of electronic and contemporary music while attending university. Is that typical of composition departments in Korean universities?
Honestly, I thought the school curriculum was old then, and I don't think it's much different now. I'm not sure if other people had a similar experience to mine, and I think it varies from school to school.
As I was organizing your work for this interview, I saw two directions. “Sound maps” and “Post-music theater”. Let's talk about Sound Maps first. You've been working on a long-term project called 'Sound Maps' since 2015.
I didn't realize it would be a long-term project from the beginning. The Tacit group was formed when I was studying at the Department of Music Technology from 2008 to 2010, and one of the members, Jang Jaeho Jang, was my teacher and the other member, Lee Jinwon was my senior in the department. I was influenced a lot by learning coding and physical computing, and I was able to participate in Tacit Group's performances as a performer, tour with them, and learn various processes such as performance planning. Then I thought, “I want to do something of my own,” and I wanted to do something in the middle of technology and art with music. The first performance I made was “Son et lumière” in 2014. After that, I was thinking about what else I could do, and when I saw the announcement of the Suwon Cultural Foundation's support project, I decided to take the challenge. At first, I didn't know much about Suwon Hwaseong Fortress but during my research, I discovered Suwon Hwaseong Fortress, and the landscape was very new, and I thought I could do new sound work in that space. From there, I continued to research and imagine the new space, and a sound map was created.
It may have been accident that you started working on soundscapes, but you've been working on soundscapes ever since your work on Suwon Hwaseong Fortress. Why is it important to you?
I'm not good at sitting alone for long periods of time, and I spent a lot of time from 2008 to 2013 battling with computers and trying to get my skills up. I wondered if there was anything else I could do better besides working with computers, and it was great to get outside and work on sound maps. Of course, I need time alone again to bring home what I recorded in the field, but the experience of being outdoors gave me the energy and motivation to keep going. I also discovered how much I enjoy collaborating with the musicians I work with.
Sometimes it's more beneficial to research a space through books or information from the internet. But you've been constantly walking around, recording and working in the field. What's the difference between researching on a computer and researching on site?
When I'm looking for a space, of course I research it beforehand on the internet. But there are some things you understand better when you go to the site. In 2017 and 2018, the spaces I worked on were the Han River and the Taebaek Mountains, and when I went to the actual space, I could feel why Seodo folk songs are sung more boldly, why they are sung more calmly and elegantly in Seoul, and why they sound more lyrical in Gangwon Province. The same mountain can be softer in some places and more majestic in others. It's these subtle differences and a certain spiritual energy that permeates the space
I'm also curious about your specific process when working on soundscapes. You can't record every sound you hear, so it's all about making choices. Do you have a method or approach to collecting sounds?
Mostly I end up recording sounds that I subjectively like. It could be the sound of running water, birds, or passing traffic. They sound slightly different depending on the temperature or humidity of the space. The noise in a space is also slightly different in different countries. In terms of recording methods, my perspective has changed over time. At first, when I tried to record birdsong, I would try to minimize the sound of cars or ambient noise, but now I try not to arbitrarily delete the sounds of the space.
In 2019, you went on a research trip to Paris and Berlin as part of your sound map project. What did you hear and what did you find?
When I went to do research abroad, I had certain expectations. There were some things that were similar to my expectations, but there were a lot of things that happened during the recording process that I didn't expect. There were times when I went to a place expecting a certain sound and there was nothing there, so I think I kept my ears open a lot more.
For example, because I'm not familiar with foreign languages, the sounds of people talking or the television all sounded like noise. In addition to field recording, it was also great to collaborate with local sound artists in Paris. In Berlin, I improvised with local musicians, and it was interesting to hear the songs that were originally played on traditional Korean instruments played on other Western instruments. In my work around this time, I mainly used traditional Korean instruments, but I realized that it didn't necessarily have to be and let go of the pressure.
When I think of field recording, I think it's a very laborious process, starting with listening back to all the recorded files, so I'm curious about your process of developing the recorded sounds into a piece.
When I was working on Suwon Hwaseong Fortress, I traveled to different places with the musicians and experimented with how the sound would sound there. There are seven water gates, and one of them has a very good resonance, so I recorded the sound of water flowing or falling, or I had ideas with the performers about what music would work well in this space. It was interesting to talk to the performers and learn about traditional instruments and music, and to hear different sounds from the cinematographer who accompanied the performers in the same space. As I developed this process into the piece, I focused on curating the sounds and making the performance as clean as possible, like a sound map of Suwon Hwaseong Fortress. I also tried to use recorded sounds as clean as possible. Recently, I've been thinking about his method removes too much of the sound and thinking about how to enrich the sounds. I'm also interested in public art and street art because my work doesn't necessarily have to be a performance on stage.
When you record the sounds of a place and present the results as a performance or exhibition, what story do you really want to tell?
I want the audience to feel the space I experienced as their own. Everyone has different memories and interpretations of the same space, and at some point a connection is made. I want to leave it open rather than present something specific, and I think music lends itself to that very well.
You've collaborated a lot with traditional musicians, especially those who specialize in improvisation. Is there a particular reason for this?
They're a fun to work with. It actually started when a traditional musician asked me to help him with an interactive visual. As a classical music major, I didn't know a lot about traditional Korean music at the time, so I started learning gayageum. It took me a while because I'm the kind of person who can understand something when I try it with my own hands. As I learned gayageum, I became more and more fascinated with traditional music, and I felt even more attracted and curious when I watched the <Yeo-woo-rak Festival> performance at the National Theater. Sometimes I'm asked if it's difficult to collaborate because of the tuning problems of traditional instruments, but I don't feel uncomfortable because I'm already familiar with microtone, modern technique of playing instruments and noise through contemporary music and electronic music. I think I keep doing it because it's fun, and I learned a lot while improvising.
Is improvisation an important element of your work?
Actually, the Western classical tradition I studied didn't really suit me because it's very score-based music where the composer controls everything. I'm more interested in working with open scores and making subtle changes from moment to moment rather than being tied to a score. When I was preparing my works, I spent a lot of time talking to the players rather than the ensemble, and I think if we have a good conversation, we can improvise better.
Now let's talk about the other end of the spectrum. The post-music theater. In fact, the art of telling stories through music has a long history. There are many examples of chants, operas, and even symphonies telling stories. In what ways do you think your “post” music theater is different from previous music theater?
The idea for the post-musical theater came from an opera I worked on in 2016. I love musicals and popular music, so I wanted to write songs for the opera in my own language, and I made a record called 'Jaya' with a poem by Baek Seok that I thought captured the flavor of Korean language. After that, I thought I wanted to do something like a total theater with electronic music. At first, I wanted to make a performance that developed 'Jaya,' but then I developed it a little further and made a <Post Music Theater: Poems>(2019) with experiments with text and sound. In <Poems> the important thing is to create a narrative with sound.
The use of sound to tell a narrative was also interesting to me. <Post Music Theater: Poems> traces the journey of sound before language, from church chant, polyphony, and polyphony to modern opera. <Neuma and Jeongganbo>(2021) a collaboration with Lee Aram, tells a similar story. Asking questions about how sound arises and where it goes seems to be important to you as a musician.
Yes, I keep asking questions. There are many people who make opera or musical theater as a finished work, and unlike those people, I think what I can do as an artist is to keep asking questions. When I was working on <Neuma and Jeongganbo>, it was quite interesting to compare what songs were sung in Joseon in 1800s and what songs were sung in Europe at that time, and make a work based on the results.
You've honed a lot of tools and techniques as an electronic musician, and I'm curious about your perspective on technology as a musician.
I used to think that technology could expand me and create new things, but now I have no such illusions, for example, I don't think the computer technology I use is more great compared to the lighting technology used in the performing arts, I just want to make good music, and I have the technology I need to do that, and there are so many kinds of technology, I just use what I need. Some people are more interested in technology and find novelty in it, but I personally like to use technology, but I don't put it too front and center in my work. I like the work where the technology doesn't come through in the work itself, even if it's cutting edge.