Fuck you, anti-nuclear!
The process of coming up with the name was very instinctual
It just came out very instinctually
Then after refecting on my own point of view for a while
the 16 characters came about
"To demarcate with sound,
to captivate with sound,
to cultivate sound ourselves,
Renew life with sound"
It's a bit of a tongue twister really
Actually
It came from an electronic music festival called "I Love Techno"
Then I thought, since we wanted to do electronic music
that if we could reach out to fans of electronic music in Taiwan
or the electronic scene abroad...
we could pick a name that would attract their attention
So we thought of "I Love Nuclear"
electronic music fans would get the reference
There was also another reason, however
When we buy souveneirs
or on the logos on clothes
You'll often see "I Love ..." something or other
Like "I Love Taipei"
Or "I Love..." something or other
And I don't really understand why people buy these kind of things
You haven't... you only went to whatever island one time
so how can you say that you love it
It's a very... superficial idea of love
It's a very excessive thing to come out with in a casual logo
So I thought, if "I love..." slips so easily off the tongue
then if I put nuclear power behind it
then would everyone think it's not a big deal?
Would they think it's strange... no, not strange...
Would they think it's ordinary?
But it's not
I don't believe it's an ordinary thing
People don't think "I Love Nuclear" is the same as "I Love Hawaii"
There's something more to it
Up to 2012, in terms of nuclear power...
It's not like Taiwan doesn't have a history of anti-nuclear movements
The movement's already decades old
so given we've seen a big industrial country just have a nuclear disaster
It makes me think...
Nuclear power plants aren't something you can sit on the fence about anymore
I'm not trying to tell people what the "right" choice is
Nuclear power isn't that type of issue
Now the situation is like this
I'll ask you if you love it or not
If you don't love it you should oppose it
and not just occupy a middle ground
That what I think
I almost want to provoke people
to find out what their attitudes on it actually consist of
So that's how our name came about
More or less anyway
This is the cover design
Can you see it from there?
It was designed by a friend who is a visual artist
which he did free of charge
For him nuclear power was like Taiwanese gods
So the nuclear waste is held up like the palanquin of a god
Like it's something really important
Our passion for it
is like a collective faith
a kind of worship
or veneration
and we don't dare to oppose it
The purpose of the graphic images
was to disturb people
to make them think "Do we really do this?"
As if we're holding up an unknown deity
This sticker
it's to do with a bit of news about the fourth nuclear power plant
There's lots of news about that
That the water level at the plant... that water escaped
and the workers used stickers and tape to cover the holes
It's recent news
Anyway, people seem to think that if something goes wrong with nuclear power
it's easily mendable
as if it's not anything serious
but they don't think about the potential harm despite being aware of it
this attitude fits in with ideas from Taiwanese folk customs
With rock music for example
there is a clear distinction between performer and audience
the performer is the performer
and the audience is the audience...
but with electronic music
although the DJ's up at the front putting on the songs,
the audience haven't come mainly just to see the DJ
the audience have come to dance
to experience
they've come to experience and to
they've not come to appreciate but to have fun themselves
It's not like you're passive, there being entertained by someone
it's more like you find a way to entertain yourself there
There's more of a sense of participation
a sense that you're participating
With electronic music it's more about getting people mobilized
You need to mobilize like you would for a protest
You need to have a network, and have it saved somewhere
and coming up to the time you have to contact everyone
like when people are mobilizing for a protest
wave after wave of mobilization
it's more like that
It's very like that
It's an attempt to do something new
it's something new in that we do what we are able to do
One of the main aims in soundfarmers doing this project
is that we don't want to be the best
We don't want to be the only anti-nuclear group
It's more like we're throwing a ball out
saying, although we're in the electronic music scene
but we're not afraid to be anti-nuclear just because we're in the electronic scene
we know the political meaning
and the concept of the system behind the whole thing
So we said, since we like electronic music
and we're also anti-nuclear
So we were brave enough to make this attempt
Making other people aware of other ways that you can play around with it
or other ways of communicating