 Deandra, can you hear me? Welcome to Electric Kugak, presented by Culture Hub as part of the Korea Project 2021, supported by the Korea Foundation. I am your host, Iris Yu-jin Jung, and I am joining from the Culture Hub LA studio located in downtown Los Angeles, and it's 6 p.m. here on Friday. I am honored and thrilled to host this live, multi-locational performance, featuring three performances from New York City, Spoken Washington, and Seoul, Korea. These performances combine Korean traditional music, as well as the stories written by the Korean artists with new media practice and also highlight the new expressions of Korean composition. The Korea Project, along with this concert, also present an online gallery called Agora, and the gallery will open right after the show, and you can view the exhibition through our Culture Hub website, and it will last until the end of the month, November 30th. So now we're about to begin our first performance of Electric Kugak, and it's by Avin Kang and Jessica Kenney. Avin is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, and Jessica is a vocalist and composer as well. They are presenting live from laboratory-spoken, and their performance is in two parts, eco-locations, and terpsichore choral dance. Please welcome Avin Kang and Jessica Kenney. You are... Peter. All right, so that was a beautiful performance by Avin Kang and Jessica Kenney. The next performance we're about to see is called A Ritual for COVID-19 by Jin Hee Kim. Jin Hee is an electrical mungo virtuoso and Guggenheim composer-fellow. She created this piece in memory of millions of deaths worldwide during the pandemic. So, without further ado, Jin Hee Kim, performing live from New York, a ride that was a ritual for COVID-19 by Jin Hee Kim. This performance was developed within the program called Experiments in Visual Storytelling by Culture Hub and La Mama, and we are really happy to be able to present it both online and live in the New York studio. Okay, so our last performance, we're going to see the performance from Korea by the project team called E Hegeum. It's a team of musicians and media artists from Seoul Institute of the Arts in Korea, which is Culture Hub's one of the founding organizations. The name of the performance is Pal Eum, which in Korean means eight sounds. Please welcome the project team, E Hegeum. All right, so that was Pal Eum by project team, E Hegeum. Thank you so much for your performance. So now we're going to bring all the performers here with us to briefly talk about their work. Before I do that, actually, let me introduce the E Hegeum team very quickly. We have Daengung Kim, director of the performance, Jeongwon Kim, and Philip Liu for creative technology and media arts, Sunwoo Park and Jiyeon Ha for Hegeum performance, and Hyunwoo Lee, Minhyun Jung, and Junhyun Moon for the video. So I think we are all here. So congratulations to all of you for a beautiful performance. That was such a great sound and visuals and aesthetics. Thank you so much for participating in the Electric Goga concert. So let's begin with Avin and Jessica. So Avin and Jessica, can you tell us a little bit about your work, the inspiration behind your performance? Sure, thank you. So as you said, there were two sections. One of them was composed by me. That was Terpsicor Coral Dance. And one was composed by Jessica at her co-location. My part, Terpsicor Coral Dance is based mostly on a section from the book Dickey by Teresa Akyocha, who is one of the great writers of her era. It was from the 1980s. She is a Korean graphic artist, so kind of one of the greatest. Not just great Korean graphic writers, but great writers. But there's a feeling there, Terpsicor Coral Dance would kind of describe the movement, kind of alchemical movement, which we tried to follow, which I tried to follow in the video. So you couldn't see us playing, but we were there making the music. And the second half of the piece was a piece that I wrote in a kind of improvisational structure. I've been really interested in this one poem for many years that I read in an anthology of Korean literature translated by Peter H. Lee. And I think he actually revised that translation over time for another anthology. So I was thinking a lot about him as a translator and also that role of translation in transmitting concepts and culture over time and over across different cultural boundaries and how challenging that is, but how inspiring and what a worthy risk to really examine all of the facets of what happens when those translations occur. It's easy to just say it's impossible. And in one sense, I do agree with that, but I love how he dealt with that. And his first translation was, he said it was very inspired by Dante. And the poem itself is by an eighth century Buddhist priest, Korean Buddhist priest. And he wrote this poem about the experience of meeting a band of thieves in the mountains. And in the time of Gautama Buddha, this also happened. And so this is kind of almost like a story that keeps getting re-experienced in different eras by different people. So he was inspired by that also to be like a kind of journey into the underworld, to see the point of view of the thieves or what I actually came to in my own musical process was the idea that our senses are thieves and they convince us that we know what's true, but actually they're stealing the reality from us. So in a way, this relationship with technology that we're all working with, and to some extent we don't even have a choice. It's just fundamental part of our lives. We have to deal with it. I think it's good for us to recognize that it steals our senses and gives them back to us in another form. And I think when we're looking at those processes, it can be very creative. So I also tried to bring in some of my admiration for Korean vocal forms, which I'm not a very knowledgeable practitioner of, but I have taken lessons. And I'm a huge fan of kago, shijo, and all kinds of Korean literary recitation forms. So I used some of those melodies to try to honor Yongjae, the priest, and Peter, the translator, and also that process of how we deal with our feelings and our perceptions and the illusions that they set up for us. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing the stories behind your performance. It was really beautiful. And Jessica, your voice is really, really beautiful. So moving on to Jinhee in New York. Hi, Jinhee. Your performance was really powerful and emotional. And can you tell us a little bit about the story of your performance and where the root of where it started from? Yes, first of all, congratulations to everybody. It was such a wonderful program. Everybody come up with great creative ideas and inspiration for me, too. We went through a very difficult time during the pandemic. Still, we are dealing with this pandemic. Since March 2020 when we had a lockdown. And I was watching all the news and horrible images about death and around the world. And maybe not so much in America, because we're living in such a kind of enclosed society. And you just focus on yourself. But then in other country, for instance, India, Brazil, Peru. And I see there's so many people, stacks of dead bodies on the streets or in a cemetery. They cannot really deal with this. And the image was striking. And I decided to collect all the images online, actually. So I've been collecting over 500 or something. But then I use probably nearly 300 photos in my piece. So that's the story of this piece. I don't have to say so much, but the picture, the image, you saw, it's a real image. That's the real story of what we have gone through around the world. As an artist, I am also inspired by Korean shamanism, shamanistic sikkinggut. That means that the shaman would do special ritual for the deceased. She would wash that body, not body, but the spirit wash. So then these people can go to the peaceful journey. So she's using a long, white cloth. And the white cloth has the notch. So she released all the notch. This notch symbolizing pain, grief, and trauma, all those bad things before dealing with the death. And so this shaman would all release whole thing. And then eventually, through this beautiful, unfolded cloth, the deceased will take a peaceful journey. So I was highly inspired by that concept. And so today, I don't have any participants. And so I have to use symbolic cloth when I was singing. But then you also saw the projected image that I really worked with a 25-yard white cloth. And so I was trying to release all the pains. So basically, we are releasing the grief together in this piece. Thank you so much for sharing. I think we have a question from the audience in New York. Check one. Can you guys hear me? OK. First and foremost, it was an incredible concert or event in a long time because of the pandemic. But one of the most powerful, we're a couple. It's really been, you know, that tonight was a very beautiful evening of celebration and evolution. So I'd love to, obviously COVID is here for a while. There's composers like Pindurekki who did Requiem for. There were a thread in the for the victims of Hiroshima, for example. I'd love to ask everyone. Also, I was an artist in residence at Seoul Institute a couple of years ago. So it's really beautiful to see the students there. I'd love to ask, what do you guys think about the evolution of instruments right now? Because everyone is using digital technologies and traditional Korean instruments, which is a very powerful synergy. Korea has been doing a tremendous amount of innovation around traditional instruments plus technology. You guys are not BTS, you know, up approach. Tonight was very non-BTS, who is very. So I'd love to hear if you could talk about the collision between contemporary technologies and the traditional forms. And sorry to bring up the Teresa Hakyeong-cha thing, but her book Dicté was amazing. Regretfully, she ended life too early. I think she was on a really amazing trajectory. She was inspired by philosophers like Jean-Baudrillard and really interesting. We're here in New York a couple blocks from the Puck Building, which is at Broadway, I'm sorry, Lafayette and Houston. It's a crazy story about her, but she was just at the beginning of her career. Really, she's not very well-known here anyway, but she should be more well-known. So it's really powerful to see a composition dedicated to her. But hopefully that's not too much of a big question, but just collage between contemporary instruments and technologies. Just would love to hear your thoughts on that. Jean-Hee or Dae-Hong, would you like to answer to that question, Janie? Oh, I had my electric commongo in 1989. It's three decades ago. And I made the first electric commongo at the time. In Korea, they didn't think about electric music in their traditional music. Actually, I was the one, first one was doing that. And it was a sensation. And also the older generation, my masters, my teachers, was shocked by that. But then at the same time, younger generation thought that was interesting idea and then this sort of followed me, too. And for a long time, over two decades, they didn't know what I was doing because I am very well-trained traditional musician back there and then coming to America. And my interest was cross-cultural. And so my cross-cultural work was that the Korean, philosophy, Korean myth, mythology with American technology and that's basically emerging here. And so they didn't know what I'm doing for a long time. But obviously, and 25 years later, I see younger generation doing what I am doing. So, yes, I made that kind of a beginning. If you think that as a trouble, then I made a trouble. So electric common go, at the time, 1989, there was not much technology to make really beautiful instruments like this. So I had a very funky one, half the size of it because they told me that, oh, the common go string is silk, made of silk. They said, oh, you cannot have pickups, you must have metal strings. So I changed all the strings into metal. And they said, oh, you don't need a soundboard, electric instrument, just need only instruments. So I made half the size and the metal string and then I plugged into whatever, at the time, you know, little device. It sounded like an electric guitar. So I didn't really care for it but then I really worked, there's no other option at the time. So I worked for 10 years and that 10 years gives me a lot of opportunity to think about it more deeper, how can I make this electric common go, not electric guitar. And then 1998, and there was the computer programs available, next MSP come out and the people are using this live interactive program. And so there was a really good point, turning point that I started thinking that new instrument. So I actually built the instrument more like original. I back to the original size, I used the same, the silk string there and then I used a different pickup this time because they developed a lot of sophisticated pickup by then. So then I developed this common go as it is now but then when you have an instrument, you, this is not the big ending, you really have to create music and it made all those computer programs designed for Western instruments. Nobody was thinking about Korean musical instruments. And so I had to work with Alex Noyes, this brilliant guy, just making all the program was commercially available. We retuned, retuned and basically customized and that's the way the sound is like this. I was keep looking for what would make, what kind of sound and what kind of music I could create on the electric common go. It's a long journey. Thank you, Jinhee. I think Dae Hong from Korea, he can also, you know, add to what Jinhee said. He developed electric haegeum. Dae Hong is sitting with two beautiful haegeum players. Can you tell us a little bit about your development of haegeum instrument? All right. What this was my first electric haegeum which I developed nine years ago. I think this is what Kim Jinhee been through. We put the sensors put in the haegeum and it detects the vibrations and I put some gadgets and kits so it detects the movement of the player. So when you play the haegeum, when you tilt it, it gives the different effects and amount and well, the player really liked it. So I saw the potential of it and then last year we've developed this electric haegeum, it's all digital with a langer. So it detects the hand movement and this is ball. So it's like inner string, outer screen and how you swing with it, it gives you different volumes and velocity. And so since this is all digital, I can make any sound with it. This so comparison, this is really based on analog. This is based on digital. The advantage of both of them, I can make any sound with the digital or detects the movement. This advantage of both of the instrument, is they need computer, so which is the artist need engineer like me. So for this tonight, tonight show, I've developed new haegeum. I made the special pickup, still I have to develop more. So the haegeum player can play haegeum like normally what they do, but you can send the signal to any guitar effects or any vocal effects, so you can change the sound. So it can be really intuitive. Yeah, that's what we've been through and I'm sure Kim Jinhee was like really ahead of us like 20 years ago. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so thank you again for everyone, for your beautiful performance. I really appreciate it. And I think this is the end of the show. I just wanna say a few things before we close. Special thanks to the Korea Foundation for supporting this event and also to our founding organizations, Lama My Experimental Theater and Seoul Institute of the Arts. And I just wanna say this in Korean very quickly. Okay, so the final reminder, we have an online gallery open. I think it should be open running now, so please check out. And it was a great pleasure to host the show. And I hope you enjoyed our weekend. Thank you for joining us.