 Hello, everyone. Hello. Good morning, actually. Good evening, Garam Kim, who is connecting and joining us from Seoul, South Korea, where it's 7pm. Here we are, 11am. So, Garam, before we start our Q&A conversation, I would like just to give a brief introduction. I'm Emmanuel Amatsoni, I've assisted Francesco Bonami in creating the Mi Family project. And today we are here for our third online interview. It is part of an online public program that has been launched by the Moodam at the end of October. And today we are here with Garam Kim, who is a South Korean artist who works mostly in the field of installation, performance, digital art, and interactive projects. She investigates most of the time the relationship that has been developed between social media and political, social, economical, and cultural issues in the South Korean society. She focuses her work on a more direct engagement, inviting the audience to activate her projects. And I'm thinking about three works of yours, Garam. The first one is Ashtag Selstar from 2016, where you have presented the exhibition space as a photo studio, we can say, furnished with makeup products and bright lights, a real setup for a selfie, we can say, where people were invited to take selfies in front of this big light letters cell star that is actually an abbreviation of a compound word, selfie, and Instagram. And the second work, which is actually related to this one is Ashtag Fantasy, from 2020. You have created for the Bangkok Biennial last October. And is it, as I said, like we can say, a second version of the installation of Ashtag Selstar. And here you also added something else. You created a YouTube virtual boyfriend channel that I would say we can use it as a guide to find the right boyfriend. You mentioned the artist type, the collector, the curator type, the ghost type. So you are actually, through this, we can even say ironic piece raising questions about how people form new relationship today in the age of YouTube, of social media. You also made a canvas piece, different works related to this project, which are canvases with a QR code piece on it. And when you look at them, they all seem the same, but they are very different because if you actually link the QR code, every code is linked to the YouTube video. The last piece I'm thinking about is the Agenda Air Salon from 2014 and still ongoing, if I'm not wrong, where you trained yourself as a hairstylist in order to develop a project that can provide a space for political conversations that can be raised up through a one-to-one interaction. And this project took place in public spaces like streets, parks, storefronts. You did it in Düsseldorf, Germany, as well as Korea. And you always choose topics that headlined local news and developed statements that exemplify also the range of public opinion. I'm also thinking about the topics you raise up in Düsseldorf, the refugee crisis, the press freedom. So the aim was that during this interactive haircut, you could discuss different topics with the participants. And you also have been inspired by recent, at the time, hair cutting practice in Korea, where activists shaved their heads to underline their civil dissent. So you have considered how a haircut might represent a political opinion when it is less directly linked to activists, but more representative of personal viewpoints. So now here I come with my first question and I will ask you, Garam, if you can tell us more about these interactive projects and how much important is for you the physical relation between the audience and the artworks and also what kind of relationship do you think there is between a work of art exhibited in a museum and the dissemination of art via the internet? Okay. So let me start about the interactions between the audience and my artworks. So the physical relationship is very important to me because my project has allowed people to have their own viewpoint or speak to, I mean, their own opinion to the themes what I provided for the projects. And rather than I just provide my own opinion or just deliver my insist, I hope to find, I mean, I hope to find some kind of discussion places. The reason why I want to create this kind of space is that I thought we do not have enough of those kind of spaces, I mean, for the public opinions or to discuss on social issues. And some people are really afraid that, I mean, to start to talk about it. So I think we can learn from each other during those kind of physical relationship. And once the most important thing is, once people realize that they have a new memorable experience, especially in the art place, they want to share about it. So that's the key point. So can you imagine if you visit my house on a project in a gallery, and if you've got a new haircut during the performance, you have a discussion with me about the social or political issues. And then after then, when you go back home or when you go to the office, the people around you just ask you, oh, you've got a new hairstyle. And you will start, oh, I visited a spatial hair salon in a gallery or in a museum. And we were discussing about this kind of topic. So that's the moment the current discussion, I mean, current issues will be started outside. So I thought art is very important for us in our lives, because it gives a chance to change our viewpoint or sometimes a way of thinking. So I think those small starting points will be changed, will be changed in our society. So that is my first answer about your first question. Thank you. And I think it's very clear and very precise because you are underlining how much important is the message we can all give and receive from art, from artists, from the art world, from the art institutions. Actually, what do you think is the value of the relationship between an art piece exhibited in a museum, in an institutional environment, a gallery, a museum and an art space and the dissemination of art, the divulgation of art through the internet? Yeah. So let me start with this a bit strange story. I have been believed that the museum is like a time machine since I was young, because we can face, we can meet the past and the present and the future as well with the artworks. Actually, I'm taking a part of the present sections in that timeline and I thought the art and artworks have been reflecting on the present, I mean, and with any new technologies and with as a media and all the time I'm observing the present and I'm observing the moment what happens here and what's going on at the moment. And I found the topics here as well as I found the technology or the medium or the tools in here in the present. So using the internet or SNS for me is as a tool. So I do not want to divide it into two different sections because nowadays we are living in the boundary between the reality and the cyberspaces. So I think in my opinion we do not need to, we do not have to divide it into sections because it's the new generation I think with the new technologies. Right. And this is, your answer is actually linked to my other question that is about the evolution of internet, the technological innovation, the immense production of devices of all kinds that we are all using in our daily life, iPads, iPhones, watches, vocal assistants. And as you just said, you artists are using these tools to analyze also the impact that these artificial transformations have had on our daily lives and in the art life. So what kind of impact do you think the digitalization of our world have in the art world? And you are actually an example of an artist who is really using these tools and the social media with an art goal in mind. So yes, what is your opinion about the meaning of art in relation to this digital society, stereotype society? Okay. So there are many technologies and today especially I want to talk about the SNS or YouTube like personal channels. Yes. So yeah, since we've got the personal channels online SNS, I think the relationship between artists or art organization and the audience has been changed because for a long time before, normally the audience, they were just followers and just following what the artist delivered and what the museum showed to them and they just accept them. But nowadays the relationship is totally different because they just started to make an image, images with their smartphones and images with their laptops and in the huge image network systems, they had an important role. So and more than they can, I mean, they could be powerful influence as well in this cyber world. So I think the most biggest impact on our art world is to change in this relationship. So we need to think about it and we need to reorganize it, reorganized with each other because we can learn from each other and we can develop our relationship very easily. So that's my answer for the first question. And then actually, sometimes I feel very nervous or sometimes I feel very afraid of the new change whenever I faced what I cannot understand from the new technologies. But as I mentioned earlier, I thought the most important thing from art, I mean, the art can change the people's minds and the way of thinking and that can change, I mean, the art can change the society and then art can change the world. So I think this is the most essential things in our art world. So even though we have any new media, any new technologies, yeah, I think this, this role of art is the most important things to give the chance to think about and give the chance to change their viewpoint. That's my answer. Thank you. And I completely agree with you. And I think in your work is very present this concept of the importance of art as a way to change the word and to change the viewpoint of people. What is interesting also in your work is that you are trying to use people minds and people voices and ideas in order to divulge your art. And I'm now referring to the work you are presenting in our platform where actually is true, as you said before, the relationship between art and audience is changed. And through this platform, we can really see how it changes because the audience now can really participate in this platform, even if it's only virtual, you can enter, you can be connected and be in communication with other people who are connected at the same time. So referring to your work in our platform, the title is Four Rows the Moving Archive. You decided in a way to change environment from a physical installation, you completely moved to a digital one to a cyberspace and monthly this piece, which is still ongoing, it started in 2014, assumes a four person girl group called Four Roses and produce digital music based on comments from popular websites. So the group, the Four Roses, is composed by four automated female voices. The music is written by yourself and the lyrics are a group of phrases of ideas extracted from Korean most popular online forums. Beyond that, what is very interesting, and I found very attractive is the fact that the songs are then distributed via the music streaming services outside and inside Korea and are available on very popular sites like iTunes, Melon Music. So you are actually going beyond any artistic boundaries. You are creating pop songs using ideas of the audience and you are using the internet to divulgate art. So do you want to describe more in detail the project and the aim you want to reach? Okay, I think it's time to stop listening to the love songs. I mean, it's kidding because almost the music in the music website, we can find maybe 90 percent. We can find only music love songs. Yeah, about love. Yeah, I know it's important, but we need to have another, we need to have another category. So anyway, the first step with these song projects is about the approach. The approach is on the comments, on the news articles. So actually in Korea we have a portal site like Yahoo. Over 80 percent of Korean people are using the portal sites and in there people can also read the news articles and their comments and reply sections and people reply the comments as much as they want. I mean, they can say anything. Actually, they can say everything because of the anonymity, because they believe they can speak without their face. So they can very truly say anything. So I thought it's very interesting part, especially in Korea, because unfortunately in Korea we do not have so much those kind of discussion culture. So we do not say, we do not have opposite opinion to the face, I mean to the person. So normally in the reality we do not have any kind of those bad stops, but online world is totally different. They do not need to worry about anything. So the comments could be a most powerful public opinion. So it just started to have, I mean, powerful power. So at least they can change. With the comments they can change the main actress in the movies and they can also change the law. I mean, because that impact to the politicians, because politicians want to get getting popular. So they they change the law from the comments. So I thought the comments culture is really powerful. And I want to make a kind of archive with that comments, because it's true stories with people nowadays. So at first I want to make a voice for the clients, because that is there there was no sounds. People just leave the message. So I just used the text to speech program and the text just transformed to the sounds. And when it's finished, it's like a song. I mean, I saw it's like a lyrics, like in the song. So many people just want to ask how to find the music company for their living. So the clue is the clue was in the movie, like the pop stars movies, you can see the first moment the singer was struggling to find the music company with the demo CD or demo tapes. So actually I did the same thing with my first album, I mean, with my first song. And luckily I found a good music company and they helped me to release every month. So it's been almost, I think seven years over seven years. Because since 2014, it has been released. Thank you, Garam. You gave us a very precise explanation of the piece. And again, I think is very much linked to our platform where people can, if they want, they can be visible through a filter. So still the anonymity is still there. You are still covered some way. But what we did is that also if you want and if you have the courage to take off this filter from yourself, you can leave a comment on a piece that is in the platform. But there you have to take the responsibility to be visible to everyone. And I think this is very important. This is also the message I think you are trying to give us. So that was very interesting. I'm sorry we're almost running out of time. So I think it's unfortunately time to conclude our conversation. And I would like to underline again how important is in Garam Kim's work, the reaction, the interaction with people, the comment and the opinion of the public. So I think in Garam's works and projects, some individuals may just simply appreciate a free haircut or a pop song without experiencing probably a process of self-interrogation about contemporary issue. But on the other hand, participate may actually probably pose and start to consider new perspectives or probably questioning their own viewpoints on social, cultural, political ideas and topics. So I think you are really stimulating our minds to go beyond the superficial cover that is around things in order to reveal bigger and deeper meanings. So I can say that I would like to invite everyone who is watching and listening us to dive in your works and trying to be immersed in the new dimension you are actually creating. And at this point I can just wish to everyone to enjoy the experience and open their minds to new point of view. So thank you very much Garam for your fantastic explanation and have a nice evening. Yeah, you too. Thank you for having me. It's so glad. Thank you Garam. Goodbye everyone. Have a good day. Bye. Bye bye. Thanks.