 So Audrey, thanks for giving us this opportunity and the time, the precious time for us to like film you and then have an interview. So about Megaport specifically as we chatted, can you describe what is your relationship to Chantonec and then Freddie and how did the idea of the performance come about? Oh yeah, Freddie and I have been friends for almost 20 years now. 20 years ago I was running my third start-up and Jialing Gao who also appeared in some of the Chantonec's tracks actually attended band practices and so on and Freddie has hung out with us a lot and I was teaching him Pearl. So it's a programming language so yeah we used to code, stay all night, learn up without drinking caffeine, just listening to metal music and so yeah, been friends for quite a while. Sorry I was just thinking, do you prefer us to wear masks? No not at all, no this is just for the show. Oh for sure! I can do the same thing again without a mask. Okay. Alright so maybe I'll just look into this camp or at Jialing, okay sure. Yeah I was trying to look into the camp which may or may not be the best thing to do. Okay right so I'll just look naturally. Okay. I'll just do the same question again. Oh, would you want that? Sure. Yeah so the story with you and Freddie and their band. Yeah, Freddie and I have been friends for almost 20 years now, 20 years ago I was running my sort of startup, my co-founder Jialing Golf actually appeared in one of the Stonics tracks so we've been like coding all night long and staying up just by not drinking coffee but listening to metal music and Freddie also visited us, we hung out quite a bit and I tried to teach Freddie Pearl, it's a programming language so it goes way back. I was wondering how did the idea of you performing at Megaport come about and how did it start? How that idea has been developed over the years? For me personally it started when a Japanese hip hop band Dos Monos sampled my interview and the interview was not specifically for the music band, it's just I relinquished a copyright for all my interviews and their creative commons attribution license so Dos Monos when they just emailed me saying that they've successfully sampled my track into their Dos Monos hip hop song called the Civil Rap and asked for my blessing because you know they don't need my copyright permission so just my blessing and so I think it's a really good way of popularizing our ideas to the audience that otherwise would not have heard of our work so it's really a kind of transcultural communication style thing so when Freddie asked me if I would entertain the idea of attending Megaports at that time not performing I was like yeah let's do a Dos Monos right let's just record some tracks of me and you can remix it however you want and just release the result into the creative commons as well and I think he's like yeah I'll have to check with my distributors but turns out his distributor is fine with that yeah but you see in the creative commons they can actually choose the license so that for example it's freely distributable but not for commercial purposes and if you run it in a commercial setting then you have to go back to the distributor for a commercial license so in that sense it broadens the reach but doesn't hurt the cash flow so to speak so I think that's one of those arrangement they end up agreeing with the distributor yeah but my moral material is free of copyright yeah so which the collaboration is easier and probably more fun without all those restrictions I know because previously people would not think of remixing images like sound sometimes it's remixed a sample and so on but for this time I just sent to the Muchen Wude Diem right one of the tracks but the director asked me to perform various different emotions so like ten different interpretations of the same song and then they used snippets of that reaction to that song to pretty much all the songs and it looked pretty well we were there and then yeah we really loved it so sorry just to follow up questions about that performance so how do you feel about that collaboration yeah like because we know that you the idea Doris did mention to us like you're hacking into that's right that's right yeah and physically actually in the Danshui Kanding like light rail station when that happened right so I'm like literally on the other side of the Taiwan island whereas Megaport is on the southern side so I think it's quite symbolic as well that I get to you know attend my own performance but you know on the other end of Taiwan so it really speaks to digital being a kind of borderless concept yeah so have you been to Megaport basically or how do you feel or know about their brand and also they asked a Megaport? Well I've known Freddy for quite a while so of course I knew when he started putting together the Megaport Festival on the other hand though because I don't endure loud music very well like overly sensitive to to sound so it's kind of not my scene but you know listening from the other end of the island I'm totally at control I can kind of mute dial you down like way down and so I actually did hear the the feedback and so I'm from the audience but in a manageable volume that I can manage myself so that's the best of both worlds but you listen to Freddy's music way back past so that's right but at a distance at a distance yeah at a distance right so it's more about their rhythm right Jiang Yang was playing at full speed but I was living you know some distance from him so when he plays at full volume then in my room it's more like manageable noise yeah so it's great to have that distance music no noise from that to to that's the perfect distance that's right over a digital transmission yeah that sounds great thank you and so speaking of that that what I think we pretty much have already thought it at that spot in terms of the whole concept your presence there and then that's like visual image wise sad wise gray and then and then Doris was telling us that they were trying to experiment with it electronic music so I think it's a combination of everything yeah is there any specific message that you think that you wanted to kind of communicate to regardless of the audience or that I think it's just a freedom to remix right the kind of lack of the authority control on my likeness on my image on my voice and so on is a message of freedom the freedom to to remix basically and that's the freedom that we kind of taken for granted now in Taiwan but in other jurisdictions that's actually not a given well even have a megaport festival is not a given right in Taiwan last year we've had the physical pride parade and so on which we very much cherish for the very ability to to run such large gatherings and that's another message the freedom of assembly physically so following up on that I would also like to ask you about especially like because the world the rest of the world a lot of them and us of course as well still under the impact of the pandemic 2020 have not gone right it's still there it's still there let's do here so do you think that your performance also is there any message in terms of the the virus in Taiwan's position in the global community now is there anything that's also being communicated yeah I think freddy did send that message right and when he was speaking to the audience there's a segment where he spoke in English and the main message is just about that we're in this together and time can help let's time and help basically that's the main message okay so it has been over the years since you introduced the world your fun fast and fair approach to Taiwan's success in countering the pandemic with digital innovation which is also I think something that is mentioned in the performance hinted so have you adapted or developed this approach in any way since definitely so yeah I talked about pink mask when we're talking about fast, fair and fun right but rainbow mask of course is a later development right and and I think freddy and Doris did their own mask interpretation right so I think this whole mask as fashion item playing has really developed into a sort of art so that people wear it all day long even when the temperature is actually quite high nowadays but still people attending an event really like to wear it throughout the day because they understand that this symbolizes the event itself is an expression of freedom not an expression of duty this doesn't look like duty right so I think this whole mask as fashion thing symbolizes the social of society participation way that we realized the counter pandemic norms thank you and um sorry a little bit more maybe about previously the performance part because megapore obviously this year that it got sold out in like three minutes yeah I know that you were the that's right you're actually the only lineup that's been announced I know I know it's not even a line it's a dot yeah so as a we were sort of also speaking to Doris about this yesterday that has because both yourself and freddy are standing politicians it's not it's not it's not completely unheard of that a politician that is involved in musical activities we've got professional singers elected as legislators yeah and also I think in other countries maybe like Jeremy Corbyn so it's not uncommon but also I think to have this collaboration it's it's quite interesting in Taiwan and in terms of this like combination between politics and then also civil society and then also music performances is there anything that you you find quite special about this performance in megaport yeah I think freddy basically is a kind of I refer to Mr. Vesa poetition meaning that poetry is my main line of work and I do politics simply because I see it as one of the ways that those comma bars could be communicated so seeing politics as a way of communication and freddy did that as well right even after he became the legislator he made new songs and doing essentially civics education right turning what he has encountered in the legislature into metal music so that people who are previously not so interested in their civics class start to pay attention to the democratic process and so on just by listening to the music so I think this is very interesting in that this is not like our hobby this is us continuing our line of work be it's in the cabinet here or for him in the legislature or on the stage it's the same line of work this continuation I think it's one of the most interesting thing about this collaboration thank you that's great and this might be actually one last question from my end which is just connecting to yesterday because Doris is telling us about the idea of a little robot yeah can I ask that why it wasn't eventually move on to the hacking and the stage of like larger screen yeah like blanking out yeah how did it well the little robot thing is what we call Lao geng right it's a it's an old trope it was fun I mean back in 2017-18 you know when telepresence robots showing my likeness was in the UN Geneva headquarters and I attended UN on the record using such a moving robot people find it pioneering it's fun on the other hand the UN General Assembly last year was all telepresence anyway right so people have moved on before the pandemic having a roving robot sounds exotic but nowadays you know telepresence and moving robot that's just everyday life especially for people under lockdown that's really the only way they can inspect a factory a business center or pretty much anywhere right so telepresence is it's not that rock anymore so we move on yeah that that's more more interesting and I think because for for them their audience their funds usually throw the the hell money right into the air as they perform as a way to honor the ancestral spirits that was commemorated in their lyrics and so on so I think it's a really touching gesture on the other hand on the kind of popular meme of me of Audrey Tang there's always you know the wearing of the tin foil hat the wearing of aluminum foil that actually amplifies electromagnetic waves and so on so combining these two things together because in the health money print there's a paper layer but there's also a foil layer right so it's kind of a deliberately amplified meme that throwing health money actually summons Audrey and Audrey's brainwaves and so on so it's a new combination and it's a new meme and so it sounds fun and so this digital health money a lot of yellow squares end up being pasted on the digital forum when I hacked into mega ports people started to throw health money but digitally right so that's also a new combination digitally that's right digitally right digitally honoring our ancestors and Doris mentioned this this meme so this you know as a foreigner this is the first time I've heard of it and she she mentioned you guys were playing with something that was formally tried to be used as an accusation against you and playing with the idea of it could you perhaps because this film is for a foreign audience to set the scene of that sure so it all started in 2016 even before I become digital minister there was a popular rumor that Audrey will control people's mobile phones using GPS waves using GPS signals so that people who protest against the government should turn off the GPS lest they get tracked and infiltrated by Audrey and I was not even the digital minister and I did this humor over rumor thing which is basically making fun of myself saying that of course I don't track people over the GPS but if you wear aluminum foil like tin foil hat as sometimes instructed by the people telling each other to turn off GPS there's a MIT study that actually says it the tin foil hat amplifies electromagnetic waves specifically in the bands that communicates 3G 4G telecommunication and so the the idea of shielding from the extraterrestrial or whatever brain waves actually makes it easier to to amplify and so the term amplify or Zeng Fu became kind of synonym of me of my name and I then proceed to translate for example on the French counter disinformation website which I contributed a mandatory translation I just translated empowerment into Zeng Fu into amplification and so it becoming a empowering message like literally amplifying the power of the people and so that the tin foil became not a symbol of conspiracy theory but of self-empowerment through like a series of for lack of better culture gems and it has reached a kind of completeness by 2019 or so 2020 so that by 2020 when people think about me and tin foil hat and whatever people think about Zeng Fu about empowerment even about a short snippet of music right so amplify by you and and so I think Freddie was just building upon that existing mimetic connection and adding another kind of commemorating the ancestor spirit layer on top of what's already a kind of urban folklore thing right is there is there any remix of your with Zeng Fu I think that would be a good yeah that's right yeah I came with Zeng Fu right yeah I think we have to make something that's right that's right yeah of course create your work yes go ahead a remix yes it's the freedom of Taiwan yeah it's the freedom of Taiwan great so I think I've done with my part so I'm a little bit to the director of course okay she wants anything yeah I realized we referenced in the questions and the fun of Boston and prevention preventing the virus but then we actually haven't set the scene for a foreign audience so perhaps you could summarize sure that approach sure okay sure so by fast fair and fun we mean that when we counter the pandemic with no lockdown encounter the infodemic with no take down we rely on a collective intelligence so that anyone who see any new development can pick up the phone and call this toll free number 1922 to be part of the collective intelligence not only get the counter pandemic measures explained to them but actually report new things and co-develop new measures there's people calling saying hey I invented a way use traditional rice cookers with the adding water put your mask on it it kills the virus doesn't kill the mask and then it turned into the daily 2 p.m broadcast message where the minister of health actually demonstrate mask cooking or a young boy called last April saying hey you're originally on mask but oh I get this pink ones but all the boys in my class have navy blue masks so I don't want to wear pink to school and then the very next day on 2 p.m minister Chen as well as all the health officers wore this pink mask and minister Chen even said that pink panther was a childhood hero so the boy become the most hit boy in the class for he own only has pink but pink is the color of hero and heroes heroes and for a couple weeks I think all the leading brands on the digital platforms colored their afters pink and and that makes sure that by last May Taiwan largely move on to post-pandemic because three quarters or more of people start to wear a mask and wash their hands not out of obligation but out of pride like sometime out of pride literally that's fast and fair and the fairness also pertains to the mass distribution in the very beginning like last January 31st we already understood this importance of three quarters of people having access to mask but at a time in the country of 23 million people we only produce two million or so a day and so we need to implement some sort of rationing and so within just three days all the 6000 pharmacies started offering their real-time availability of the mask in stock so people do not have to queue in vain they can actually co-create a more even and fair distribution mechanism with equity and people develop more than 100 different tools to help locating the mask availability using chat box maps and so on and finally the fun part so in addition to the daily press conference there's a very cute she by you know the name sunshine dog and that lives with the participation officer a dedicated team of communicators within the ministry of health and welfare so every time the ccc the minister Chen rolls out a new measure for example physical distancing then a very funny meme is roll out within hours that says for example when you're indoor keep three she bus away from one another or wear a mask when you're out there keep two she bus away or wear a mask is very very funny and a very cute dog putting their food to their mouth and with a meme that says you know it's forbidden to to put your foot in your mouth because you know the mouse protects your mouth against your unwashed hands again very easy to remember and links has annotation with mosquitoes because it's only useful if you do both right but it doesn't really offend anyone it communicates across cultures and languages and jurisdictions so people just remixed out so the power of memes and the power of remixing allows us to counter the disinformation that was rampant during the pandemic in our jurisdictions without resorting to censorship or takedowns and so on with the democracy is the strength not as a weakness democracy allows people to remix and contribute to ways to increase the our basic reproduction rates of science and clarification so that conspiracy theorists gets inoculated thank you thank you yeah that's great I think I think I'm happy Rob do you have any contributing questions yeah I think you're living this game thank you so much for this yeah is there any like offers are there shots and we we're wondering we accept that we might not be able to film in certain areas but is there any chance just to introduce the setting that we could film you walking through the hallway sure of course oh okay that's great how about walking outside the building sure of course okay great nice and that's fantastic we'll just move to handheld okay